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THE EARLY POPULARITY OF 
MILTON'S MINOR POEMS 



A DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY 

OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE 

IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH 



BY 

GEORGE SHERBURN 



Private Edition, Distributed By 

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LIBRARIES 

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 



Reprinted, with some corrections, from 

Modern Philology, Vol. XVII, Nos. 5 and 9 

September, 1919, and January, 1920 



THE UNIVERSITY OP CHICAGO PRESS 
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 



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THE MISSION BOOK COMPANY 

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XCbe TUntversltp of Cblcago 



THE EARLY POPULARITY OF 
MILTON'S MINOR POEMS 



A DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY 

OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE 

IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH 



BY 

GEORGE SHERBURN 



Private Edition, Distributed By 

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LIBRARIES 

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 



Reprinted, with some corrections, from 

Modern Philology, Vol. XVII, Nos. 5 and 9 

September, 1919, and January, 1920 



43? 



Gift 

Uaiver«lt<' 



PREFACE 

The study here presented is a by-product of a much more detailed 
examination of the popularity of Alexander Pope in his own day, 
which was to have constituted my doctoral dissertation. The rami- 
fications of the Pope problem and the costs of printing so extensive 
a study, however, have led to the substitution of this smaller mono- 
graph as a dissertation. My intention is to publish the work on 
Pope later. It was necessary early in the study of Pope's reputation 
to determine roughly how Milton was regarded during the period in 
which Pope is commonly thought to have ranked as England's 
greatest poet. Such an account of the attitude toward Milton had 
been given, notably by Professors R. D. Havens and J. W. Good, 
who had demonstrated conclusively the superlative regard felt for 
''Paradise Lost" in Pope's day. It seemed to me that the vogue of 
the minor poems, which have been generally regarded as neglected 
before 1740, justified further study. If this monograph succeeds in 
establishing a popularity for these poems throughout their history, it 
has direct bearings on their relationship to the so-called "romantic" 
movement, on the relationship of Thomson's "Seasons" to the mid- 
century vogue of the poems, and on the notion that the eighteenth 
century saw a conscious struggle between rival schools of Pope and 
of Milton. This antagonism of supposed rival schools seems to have 
developed late. Pope is full of Miltonic phrases; and Thomson, 
Mallet, William Hamilton, Joseph Warton, and others of their time 
follow now Pope, now Milton, with no sense of incongruity in that 
procedure. 

To prove the popularity of the minor poems of Milton in the 
period under consideration, a mass of evidence rather than acuteness 
of interpretation was necessary. The task became, therefore, one 
of industry rather than of argumentative skill, and the only excuse 
for its laborious dulness is the fact that critics for over a century 
have seen bits of this evidence but, with the exception of William 
Godwin, have neglected to interpret the mass of it properly. My 
own study of the matter was begun some years ago as a minor 



iv Preface 

exercise in a course on Milton given by Professor Lovett. While I 
have profited much by the stimulus there received, the work has 
been continued mainly in casual connection with my work on Pope. 
The result, therefore, makes no pretense to the completeness of an 
"allusion-book" (the seventeenth-century romantic drama, for 
example, which should yield parallels to "Comus," has hardly been 
touched for that purpose) ; it pretends only to demonstrate that the 
smaller pieces of Milton's poetry were always reasonably popular. 

In making the acknowledgments customary on such occasions as 
this, it is a pleasure to recall and to express gratitude for valuable 
training received from Professors Winchester and Mead, of Wesleyan 
University, and later from Professors Manly, Lovett, MacClintock, 
Reynolds, and others, of the University of Chicago. Since much of 
the reading on this particular piece of work was done in Boston and 
Cambridge, it is merest justice to thank most heartily the authori- 
ties of the Harvard College Library and of the Boston Public Library 
for their courtesies. Dr. Frank L. Chase, of the Boston Public 
Library, was particularly helpful. Lastly, I thank Professor D. H. 
Stevens for considerable labor in revising my manuscript and Pro- 
fessor Baskervill for his unending editorial kindness. 

George Sherburn 
University op Chicago 
January, 1920 



THE EARLY POPULARITY OF MILTON'S MINOR POEMS 

L' Allegro and II Penseroso, which are now universally known; but 
which, by a strange fatality, lay in a sort of obscurity, the private enjoy- 
ment of a few curious readers, till they were set to admirable music by Mr. 
Handel. And, indeed, this volume of Milton's Miscellaneous Poems has 
not till very lately met with suitable regard. — Joseph Warton, Essay on 
the Genius and Writings of Pope (1756), I, 38. 

On this statement, echoed in 1785 by Thomas Warton in his 
edition of Milton's Poems on several occasions^ and by Wordsworth 
in his "Essay supplementary to the Preface of 1802" — where the 
recognition of the poems is postponed to about 1785 — ^literary history 
has been based. In spite of the able protests of William Godwin^ 
against the statements of Thomas Warton, those statements have 
prevailed even in the work of recent students of Milton.^ It is 
important, however, to note that Todd, a friend of Warton's, 
expressed surprise "that Mr. Warton should have asserted that for 
seventy years after their first publication, he recollects no mention 
of these poems in the whole succession of English literature."* 
Todd thereupon corrected some of the mistakes in Warton's facts 
and cited some bits of evidence to disprove neglect. Masson,^ 
though conservative in the matter, seems rather to agree with the 
views here to be stated. There is no doubt, of course, that through- 
out the eighteenth century "Paradise Lost" was much more popular 
than Milton's other poems; and there is no doubt that the middle 
of the eighteenth century saw a great outburst of imitation and 
praise of the "minor" poems. But an increased vogue does not 
necessarily imply previous neglect, and literary historians have 
commonly said that the minor poems were neglected for a hundred 
years after their first publication. A fairly extensive, if cursory, 

' See pp. x-xli of the 2d ed. (1791), to which all my references here are made. 

2 Godwin's Lives of Edward and John Philips (1815), pp. 286 fl. 

3 R. D. Havens in Eng. Stud., XL, 175 flf., 187 flf. ; J. W. Good, Studies in the Milton 
Tradition (1915), pp. 141-42; Dowden, Proceedings of the British Academy (1907-8), 
p. 291. 

* Todd's (2d) eid. of Milton's Poetical Works (1809), I, 61-62. 
5 See his Life of Milton, VI, 775 ff. 
259 . 75 [Modern Philology, September, 1919 



76 



George Sherburn 



reading of English prose and poetry of the century following the 
Restoration has led me to the belief that phrasal echoes as well as 
critical comments and multiplicity of editions indicate for the poems 
a widespread and high regard from the time of their first publica- 
tion. We shall then study the vogue of these poems before 1740, 
by which approximate date the poems are commonly thought to 
have attained due recognition. 



It may be proper first to examine the usual form in which these 
poems were printed. The customary view, I believe, is that they 
were printed as a necessary part of Milton's "Poetical Works," 
and rarely except as such. At first sight this seems an entirely 
just view. In the period under consideration were printed eighteen 
separate editions of "Paradise Lost," and the poem appeared also 
eleven times in editions classed by Dr. Good as "Poetical Works."^ 
The more important of the minor poems, aside from these eleven 
inevitable printings, were issued, variously grouped, on an average 
of five times each when clearly independent of the "Poetical Works." 
The following table, imitatively based on Dr. Good's results,^ may 
be of assistance : 



How Printed 


as 
c6 O 




M) g 
^ 1 


(0 

i 




11 


A. In separate editions 


18 






2 
2 
2 

9 
1 


1 
2 
2 

9 

1 
2 








2 
2 

9 

1 
2 




C In Poetical Works (1 vol.) 


2 
9 


2 

9 

1 


2 


D. In "Poetical Works" (2 vols.) (So called 

by Dr. Good) 

E. Paradise Regain'd and minor poems . . 


9 
1 












4 


4 














Total editions before 1740 


29 


16 


16 


16 


17 


16 



1 Studies in the Milton Tradition, p. 25. 

2 See op. cit., chapter ii. "Comus" was in 1738 printed four times in the form 
Dalton gave it for stage performance. I have omitted these editions, anticipating an 
objection that they are not Milton. The table may be further explained by giving the 
dates of editions (except the 18 of "Paradise Lost"). Under A we have "Comus" 
in 1637 and 1638; "Lycidas" in 1638. Under B the dates are 1645, 1673; imder C, 
1695, 1698 (the 1731 ed.. Dr. Good to the contrary, is in two voliimes); under D, 1705, 
1707, 1713, 1720, 1721, 1725. 1727, 1730, 1731; under E, 1695; imder P, 1716 and 1727; 
under G, 1671, 1672, 1680, 1688. 

The initials of the minor poems are used throughout this article to abbreviate the 
names. 

260 



Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems 77 

It is noteworthy that the one-volume and two-volume editions 
of the Poetical Works have been separated here. In 1695 "Paradise 
Regained," "Samson Agonistes," and the minor poems appeared as 
a volume, and beginning with 1705, according to Dr. Good, this 
combination became the second volume of the "Poetical Works," 
as he calls them. It is clear that in some editions — such as that of 
1695 — the minor poems are regarded as subordinated to the three 
major works, for the minor poems are printed in two columns, while 
the others are not; but when they are (with "Paradise Regain'd" 
and "Samson," toxbe sure) given a volume by themselves, they 
cease in part to depend on the greater epic. Their independence 
seems more plausible when it is noted that this "second" volume 
is sometimes — I have not seen all the editions — printed without 
any indication of the fact that it is part of the "Poetical Works." 
A specimen title-page runs: 

Paradise Regain'd./ A POEM./ In Four BOOKS./ To which is 
added/ SAMSON AGONISTES./ AND/ POEMS upon several Occasions./ 
With a Tractate of Education./ The AUTHOR/ JOHN MILTON./ The 
FIFTH EDITION. Adorn'd with Cuts./ London: Printed for /. Tonson, 
at Shake/ spear's Head, over-against Catherine-/ Street in the Strand. 
1713./ 

The only indication of relationship of this volume to any other is 
a gilt "2" on the back; the words "Poetical Works" are nowhere 
to be found in it. The "sixth" and "seventh" editions of these 
poems (1725 and 1730) lack even this "2," as do some of the 1752 
edition edited by Newton. Unfortunately, other editions that I 
have seen have been recently rebound, but the title-pages indicate 
no connection between the two volumes. At least, then, the idea 
that the shorter pieces were printed only as pendants to "Paradise 
Lost" should be expressed with great caution. Indeed, the fact 
that Tonson printed these poems eight times between 1705 and 
1730 in a volume by themselves shows undoubted commercial 
demand; for it is practically certain that the volumes were not 
made to be sold only in sets. Tonson also included three of the 
poems — probably the most popular three — in Dryden's Miscellany 
for 1716 and 1727. The only conclusion safely to be drawn from 
printing during this period is that these poems in one combination 

261 



78 George Sherburn 

or another were so frequently before the public that it would be 
strange if they were not read. It is interesting to see that during 
the years 1712 to 1732 "The Rape of the Lock"— admittedly one 
of the most popular poems of its day — was reprinted, separately 
or in combination with other pieces, about a dozen times. In the 
same period "L'AUegro," ''II Penseroso," and ''Lycidas" were, 
considering all combinations, printed about nine times. In this 
case reprintings do not prove much perhaps; but certainly the 
steady reprinting tends to disprove neglect.^ 

II 

Preliminary to any presentation of "critical" comment on thesQ 
poems during our period, it is necessary to remind the reader that — 
Milton entirely aside — the critics of the time seem to have showed 
no great acumen; that criticism proceeded almost entirely to the 
discussion of "the greater poetry" (epic, tragedy, ode) — about which 
it has said little of permanent value. All lyric poetry was neglected 
by critics: in this sense Milton's minor poems were neglected. But 
they were no more neglected by critics than were the smaller pieces 
of Cowley, Waller, and Dryden. It is, furthermore, necessary to 
remark that whenever the poems are mentioned by critics (with 
perhaps two or three exceptions) they are mentioned with very 
high praise.^ The shining exception is Dryden,^ who in 1693 alleged 

' I have based my account of these editions upon Dr. Good's very explicit work 
(op. cit., pp. 24-43). As a matter of additional record, I may cite Professor Arber's 
Term Catalogues (1903-G), II, 525, for a reprint of "Lycidas" (1694) with a Latin version 
by W. Hog, which Dr. Good does not coimt as an English edition — and which I have 
not counted here. On the other hand, the Boston Public Library copy of Tonson's 
1695 edition of Milton seems merely to bind in misold copies of the 1688 print of "Para- 
dise Regain'd" and "Samson Agonistes." Dr. Good counts these two editions, and I 
have followed him. Similarly I have neglected the fact, unnoted by him, that the 1721 
edition of "Paradise Regain'd," etc., uses the 1713 print of "Samson Agonistes." Quite 
evidently Tonson reprinted only such poems by Milton as the public wished to buy. 
I am frank to confess that I have seen only the editions of Milton that may be seen at 
Harvard, at the Boston Public Library, and in the various libraries of Chicago. 

- This is true for everytliing except "Paradise Regain'd." Those who say, as does 
Dr. Good (op. cit., p. 34) among others, that the minor poems were "almost uniformly 
subordinated to the lesser epic" should note the fact that while the minor poems are 
mentioned practically always with praise, "Paradise Regain'd" is spoken of in quite 
another tone. See, for example, Edward Phillips' Life of Milton (1694), p. ix; R. 
Meadowcourt's Critique on Milton's Paradise Regain'd (1732), p. 3; John Jortin's 
Remarks on Spenser's Poems (1734) , p. 171 ; J. Richardson's Explanatory Notes and Remarks 
on Milton's Paradise Lost (1734), p. xciv. 

3 W. P. Ker, Essays of John Dryden, II, 30. 

262 



Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems 79 

in his own breezy manner that the reason Milton used blank verse 
was "that rhyme was not his talent," and adduced as proof that the 
rhyme in Milton's early poems "is always constrained and forced, 
and comes hardly from him, at an age when the soul is most pliant, 
and the passion of love makes almost every man a rhymer, though 
not a poet." This opinion certainly indicates ignorance of the 
poems or unscrupulous argumentative practice — or probably both. 
William Benson, in his Letters concerning Poetical Translations, and 
Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. (1739), p. 61, quotes Dry- 
den's remark approvingly; but Benson's rank as critic may be 
gauged by the fact that a main thesis of his Letters is that "the 
principal Advantage Virgil has over Milton is Virgil's Rhyme" 
(p. 8). These views, in any case, are highly exceptional. If we 
examine the notices of the poems to be found in biographies, essays, 
letters, and eulogistic poems, we shall see a considerable number of 
passages expressing high commendation. Because any attempt at 
"organization" of this material would be artificial, and because 
there is obvious advantage in seeing the historical cumulation of 
references to the poems, these exceedingly miscellaneous bits of 
evidence will be chronologically listed. 

1637. Sir Henry Wootton's letter commendatory of "Comus" 
certainly started Milton criticism with superlative praise. Even 
if, with Thomas Warton, we discount the tribute as due in part 
to friendship, we still see the evident dehght of the writer glow forth. 
The letter is usually reprinted with "Comus." 

1637. Lawes, H. In the dedication prefixed to the first edition 
of "Comus" Lawes informs Viscount Brackley "that the often 
copying of it hath tired my pen to give my several friends satisfac- 
tion, and brought me to a necessity of producing it to the pubHc 
view."^ 

1645. Moseley, Humphrey. Moseley, the printer of the poems, 
prefixed to the 1645 edition some remarks addressed "To the 
Reader" which seem significant. In part they read: 

The Author's more peculiar excellency in these studies was too well 
known to conceal his Papers, or to keep me from attempting to solicit 
them from him. Let the event guide itself which way it will, I shall deserve 

1 Quoted from the Clarendon Press ed. (1906), I, 46. 

263 



80 George Sherburn 

of the age by bringing into the light as true a birth as the Muses 
have brought forth since our famous SPENSER wrote; whose Poems in 
these Enghsh ones are as rarely imitated as sweetly excelled.^ 

After a great deal of this has been credited to the eternal advertising 
tendency, it remains true that since Moseley was publisher for many 
poets, he could not afford to waste fond superlatives on poems that 
were not asssured a success even before publication. To these 
early tributes by Wootton, Lawes, and Moseley might be added 
the flattering compliments paid the young poet by his Italian 
friends, but since we are primarily concerned with his English repu- 
tation, those are here omitted .^ 

Ca. 1648. Archbishop Sancroft thought highly enough of the 
"Nativity Ode" and the version of the "Fifty-third Psalm" to copy 
them from "John Milton's poems." Thomas Warton regarded this 
act as "perhaps almost the only instance on record, in that period 
of time [1645-1715], of their having received any, even a slight, 
mark of attention or notice."^ The statement is a fair sample of 
the lack of investigation upon which the Wartons based their theory 
of neglect. 

1655. Cotgrave, John. The English Treasury of Wit and Lan- 
guage. Thomas Warton {op. cit., p. vii) regards omission of the 
minor poems from this work as evidence of neglect, but Godwin 
calls attention to the fact that Cotgrave drew only from dramatic 
poets.* Omission of "Comus" in such a case becomes regrettable 
but comprehensible. 

1657. Poole, Joshua. The English Parnassus: or a helpe to 
English Poesie. In citing this as one of the books in which not 
"the quantity of a hemistich" of Milton is quoted, Warton made 
one of the worst blunders of his career. Godwin is quite right in 
saying that the "Poems on Several Occasions, published twelve 
years before, appear to be cited as often as the writings of almost 
any other author" — which means as often as the greatest Elizabe- 
thans are cited. Godwin quotes Todd as saying "there are few 

1 See Todd's ed. (1809), I, 61; the Everyman Library ed., p. 375; or almost any 
good edition for this letter. 

" For this Italian reputation see Masson's Life, I, chap, viii, passim. 
3 See Thomas Warton's ed. of Milton's Poems upon several occasions, 1791 (his 
2d ed.), p. V. 

< Lives of Edward and John Philips (1815), p. 286. 

264 



Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems 81 

pages in which quotations may not be found from Milton's 
poetry." 

1660. Saumaise, Claude. Claudii Salmasii ad Johannem Mil- 
tonum Responsio. On page 5 of this work Saumaise jeers at Milton's 
false quantities in his Latin poems, and adds sarcastically : 

Tametsi aetatem illis, qua scripta sunt, non apposuisset, facile tamen 
perspicere poteramus pueri esse poemata. Sed puerilia errata praestare 
debet jam vir, cum & paucos abhinc annos recudi Londini curaverit. Si 
stylus hie ejus semper fuisset, & araoribus cantandis aut naeniis mortuali- 
bus plorandis tempus tantum impendisset, pessimum poetarum longe ante- 
ferrem optimo patronorum, qui pessimam causam tueretur. 

This is not evidence of high regard, but I think it does argue the 
poems known in 1660. It begot later criticism. (See 1695, 
Morhof.) 

1669. Phillips, Edward. Joannis Buchleri Sacrarum Profana- 
rumque Phrasium Poeticarum Thesaurus (17th edition). Appended 
to this work was a section entitled Tradatulus de Carmine Dra- 
matico Poetarum Veterum, cui subjungitur Compendiosa Enumeratio 
Poetarum Recentiorum, in which was included the first printed 
praise of ''Paradise Lost." Although the work, like so many others 
of the time, is almost literally an enumeration, the minor poems get 
brief mention: 

Joannes Miltonius, praeter alia quae scripsit elegantissima, tum Anglice, 
tum Latine, nuper pubUci juris fecit Paradisum Amissum, Poema, quod, 
sive sublimitatem argumenti, sive leporem siraul et raajestatem styli, sive 
sublimitatem inventionis, sive similitudines et descriptiones quam maxime 
naturales, respicamus, vere Heroicum, ni fallor, audiet: plurimum enim 
suffragiis qui non nesciunt judicare, censetur perfectionem hujus generis 
poematis assecutum esse.* 

Thomas Warton bars this testimony as coming from a relative. 
The superlative applied to the minor poems is typical. 

1675. Phillips, Edward. Theatrum Poetarum, pp. 113-14: 

lohn MUton, the Author (not to mention his other works, both in Latin 
and English, both in strict and solute Oration, by which his Fame is suffi- 
ciently known to all the Learned of Europe) of two Heroic Poems, and a 
Tragedy; namely Paradice lost, Paradice Regain' d, and Samson Agonista 

1 This passage is quoted from Godwin's Lives (1815) of Milton's two nephews, p. 
145, note. 

265 



82 George Sherburn 

[sic]; in which how far he hath reviv'd the Majesty and true Decorum of 
Heroic Poesy and Tragedy : it will better become a person less related then 
myself, to deUver this judgement. 

This affirmation of an international reputation for the early poems 
is valuable evidence against the theory of neglect.^ 

Ca. 1681? Aubrey, John. Brief Lives (Oxford, 1898), II, 60-72. 
Aubrey's notes, concerned with biographical fact rather than criti- 
cism, mention the friendship with Diodati as reflected in the poems, 
and call attention to Milton's precocity by saying of the "Poems": 
"Some writtbutat 18." 

Undated letters between Waller and St. Evremond afford 

invaluable evidence. Dr. Good dates the letters about 1673 "or 
later" (op. ciL, p. 141). Waller writes: 

There is one John Milton, an old commonwealth's man, who hath in the 
latter part of his life, written a poem intituled Paradise Lost; and to say 
the truth, it is not without some fancy and bold invention. But I am much 
better pleased with some smaller productions of his in the scenical and 
pastoral way; one of which called Lycidas I shall forthwith send you, that 
you may have some amends for the trouble of reading this bad poetry. 
[He had enclosed verses of his own.] 

And St. Evremond replies: 

The poem called Lycidas, which you say is written by Mr. Milton, 
has given me much pleasure. It has in it what I conceive to be the true 

spirit of pastoral poetry, the old Arcadian enthusiasm What 

pleases me in John Milton's poem, besides the true pastoral enthusiasm 
and the scenical merit, is the various and easy flow of its numbers. Those 
measures are well adapted to the tender kind of imagery, though they are 
not expressive of the first strong impressions of grief .^ 

1687. Winstanley, William. The lives of the most Famous Eng- 
lish Poets. Here we have one long sentence devoted to Milton 
in which Winstanley copies the misspelling of Milton's three major 
titles from the Theatrum Poetarum, without mentioning the minor 
poems at all. Phillips' sentence about Milton's fame as based on 
other works than these three roused all Winstanley's political antag- 

1 An ambiguity in Phillips' further praise of Milton's heroic poems on page 114 
(under John Phillips) has amusingly misled the unintelligent Winstanley in his Lives 
(1687), p. 210 — and also the D.N.B. (see John Phillips). 

- These quotations are from Letters supposed to have passed between M. de St. Evre- 
mond and Mr. Waller (1809), pp. 133-38. 

266 



Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems 83 

onism and he exclaims: ''But his Fame is gone out like a Candle 
in a snuff, and his Memory will always stink, which might have 
ever lived in honourable Repute, had he not been a notorious 
Tray tor." 

1687. Ayres, Philip. Lyric Poems. In the Preface to this 
volume the writer defends "sonnets, canzons, madrigals, &c." — of 
which, either original or translated, his volume largely consists — 
saying: 

For many eminent Persons have published several things of this nature, 
and in this method, both Translations and Poems of their own; As the 
famous Mr. Spencer, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Richard Fanshaw, Mr. Milton, 
and some few others; The success of all which, in these things, I must needs 
say, cannot much be boasted of; and tho' I have little reason after it, to 
expect Credit from these my shght Miscellanies, yet has it not discouraged 
me from adventuring on what my Genius prompted me to. 

This passage obviously is a complaint that lyric poetry (especially 
sonnets, he probably meant) in general is neglected. Milton as a 
lyricist is mentioned apparently with Ayres' favorites. 

1688. Morhof, Daniel George. Polyhistor sive notitia auctorum 
et rerum commentarii. I have not seen this edition, but that of 
1695 (the second), after a defense of Milton's Latin prose as compared 
with that of Saumaise, remarks: 

Quicquid tamen ejus sit, ostendunt Miltoni scripta virum vel in ipsa 
juventute: quae enim ille adolescens scripsit carmina Latina, una cum 
AngUcis edita, aetatem illam longe superant, qua ille vir scripsit poemata 
AngUca sed sine rhythmis, quos ut pestes carmmum vernaculorum abesse 
volebat, quale illud 12. hbris constans the paradise lost. Plena ingenii & 
acuminis sunt, sed insuavia tamen videntur ob rhythmi defectum, quem 
ego abesse a taU carminum genere non posse existimo, quicquid etiam illi, 
& Italis nonnullis, & nuper Isaaco Vossio in Ubro poematum cantu, 
videatur.i 

The first part of this is amusing as a reply to Saumaise {vide supra), 
and the last part as a reaction to blank verse. There may be lack 
of judgment but there is no lack of praise with regard to the lesser 
poems. See 1660 and also 1732. 

1691. Langbaine, Gerard. An Account of the English Dramatick 
Poets. Milton is treated on pages 375-77. A page and a half are 

1 Liber I, cap. xxiv, pp. 304-5. 

267 



84 George Sherburn 

devoted to "Samson," mainly to its versification, and to "Comus." 
For "Comus" considerable title-page information is given. The 
other poems are merely listed; the "Poems in Latin and English" 
are dated 1645; Langbaine is ignorant of the date of "Paradise 
Lost." Thomas Warton (op. cit., p. vi) has misrepresented these 
facts. 

1691. Wood, Anthony. Athenae Oxonienses. This work, again, 
neglects the poetical genius of Milton, but does not neglect the 
minor poems more than the greater poems. The various poetical 
volumes are dutifully listed, and in column 880 it is said: "By his 
indefatigable study he profited exceedingly, wrote then several 
Poems, paraphras'd some of David's Psalms, performed the colle- 
giate and academical exercise to the admiration of all, and was 
esteemed to be a vertuous and sober person, yet not to be ignorant 
of his own parts." In column 883 after listing the "Poems, &c. on 
several occasions" as published in 1673-4, he adds: "Among these 
are mix'd some of his Poems before mention'd, made in his youth- 
ful years." In column 884: "To conclude, he was more admired 
abroad, and by Foreigners, than at home; and was much visited 
by them when he liv'd in Petty France, some of whom have out of 
pure devotion gone to Breadstreet to see the House and Chamber 
where he was born, &c." This last shows that Phillips' statement 
about a continental reputation was not mere family pride. Prob- 
ably his Latin and Italian poems had by 1690 aided his reputation 
throughout Europe more than had "Paradise Lost." At least 
Anthony Wood did not regard Milton as a poet of one poem. 

1692. The Athenian Mercury, 16 January, 1691-2 (Vol. V, No. 
14), prints an interesting discussion, "Whether Milton and Waller 
were not the best English Poets ? and which the better of the two ?" 
The poets are said to be " both excellent in their kind " ; but Milton's 
merits are given the more attention. "Paradise Lost" and "Sam- 
son" receive most space, but the critic concludes his specification of 
merits by saying, "In his Juvenile Poems, those on Mirth and 
Melancholly, an Elegy on his Friend that was drown'd, and especially 
a Fragment of the Passion, are incomparable." 

"Incomparable" is a word worth emphasizing. It is hard to 
see that the critic here is any less enthusiastic over the minor poems 

268 



Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems 85 

than over "Paradise Lost" or "Samson," which naturally receive 
more space.^ 

1692. [Gildon, Charles]. Miscellany Poems upon Several Occa- 
sions. Pages 29-33 print "Julii Mazarini, Cardinalis, Epitaphium: 
Authore Joh. Milton." This inclusion illustrates the interest of 
the time in anything signed John Milton. 

1694. PhilHps, Edward. Life of Milton. Prefixed to Letters of 
State, Written by Mr. John Milton. In this Life Phillips attends to 
biographical fact and neglects literary criticism. The "Nativity 
Ode," "L' Allegro," "II Penseroso," and "Comus" are unmentioned. 
"The Vacation Exercise" and "Lycidas" as growing out of Milton's 
college experience are mentioned. Of the latter it is said: "Never 
was the loss of Friend so Elegantly lamented; and among the rest of 
his Juvenile Poems, some he wrote at the Age of 15, which contain a 
Poetical Genius scarce to be parallel'd by any English Writer " (p. ix). 

1694. Hog, William. In the Term Catalogues (ed. Arber, II, 
525) the following is listed for November, 1694: "Two poems (the 
one whereof was pen'd by Clievland; and the other by Milton) 
upon the death of a worthy and learned young gentleman, Mr. 
Ed. King, who was drown'd in the Irish Seas. To which is added, 
a Latin Paraphrase on both; which was pen'd by W. H. Quarto." 
See under 1698. 

1696. Gildon, Charles, editor. Chorus Poetarum; or poems on 
Several Occasions, etc. (For this date see the Term Catalogues [ed. 
Arber], II, 590. The title-page has the combination MDCLXIXIV.) 
Here Gildon prints (p. 19) "To Christina Queen of Sweden by 
Mr. Marvel." These lines have also been ascribed to Milton. 
Todd, in his edition of Milton (1809, I, 209), says of these verses to 
Christina: "They are ascribed to Fleetwood Shephard in a worth- 
less book, entitled Chorus Poetarum, 8vo. 1684." 

1697. Bayle, Pierre. Dictionaire historique et critique, II, 590, 
Here in a footnote Bayle treats of Milton's poetry. He devotes 
more space to the minor poems than to "Paradise Lost," but merely 
summarizes the remarks of Saumaise and gives dates for the Latin 
poems and the 1645 volume. See 1702. 

1 See Dr. Good, op. cit., p. 142. I owe this reference and some others to the kindness 
ol Professor R. S. Crane of Northwestern University. Sir Thomas Pope Blount, De 
Re Poetica, pp. 137-38, soon reprinted the entire passage without comment. 

269 



86 George Sherburn 

1698. Hog, William. Comoedia Joannis Miltoni, viri clarissimi, 
(quae agebatur in Arce Ludensi,) paraphrastice reddita, a Gulielmo 
Hogaeo. So listed by Todd, Milton's Works (1809), I, 202. I have 
not seen the book. The preface should contain material valuable 
for this study. 

1698. Toland, John. A Coynplete Collection of the Historical, 
Political, and Miscellaneous Works of John Milton . ... In Three 
Volumes. To which is Prefixed The Life of the Author. The Life 
which Toland here printed is filled with the highest enthusiasm for 
all Milton's works. This Warton explains away as due to the 
influence of Edward Phillips. The praise, however, has a glow of 
sincerity that casts doubt upon Warton's notion. Only a few 
passages can be quoted. From page 7 : 

He wrote another Latin Elegy to CHARLES DEODATI; and in his 
twentieth year he made one on the approach of the Spring : but the follow- 
ing year he describes his falling in love with a Lady (whom he accidentally 
met, and never afterwards saw) in such tender Expressions, with those 
lively Passions and Images so natural, that you would think Love himself 
had directed his pen, or inspir'd your own Breast when you peruse them. 

From page 10: 

Our Author in mournful Notes bitterly laments the immature fate of 
this young Gentleman, whom he denotes by the appellation of Damon in 
an Eclog nothing inferior to the Maronimi Daphnis, and which is to be still 
seen among his Latin Miscellanies. 

From page 16: 

Thus far our Author, who afterwards made tliis Character good in his 
inimitable Poem of Paradise Lost; and before this time in his Comus or 
Mask presented at Ludlow Castle, like which Piece in the pecuUar 
disposition of the Story, the sweetness of the Numbers, the justness of the 
Expression, and the Moral it teaches, there is nothing extant in any Lan- 
guage. 

Later, page 44, Toland says: 

Our Author's Juvenil and Occasional Poems, both in English and Latin, 
were prmted in one small volume. I took notice of the best of 'em in many 
places of this Discourse; but the Monody wherein he bewails his Learned 
Friend Mr. Kng drown'd in the Irish seas, is one of the finest he ever wrote. 

On pages 20, 24, and 35 of his Life, Toland quotes sonnets by Mil- 
ton, four of which he notes as "never printed with his other poems." 

270 



Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems 87 

Aside from these sonnets no poems are in any way treated as if 
Toland thought himself their "discoverer" or as if he thought 
himself dealing with poems that had ever suffered neglect. It is 
astonishing that anyone who has read his Life attentively should 
think the poems were disregarded in Toland's day. 

1699. Gildon, Charles. Lives and Characters of the English 
Dramatic Poets. This reworking of Langbaine (1691) dwells natur- 
ally upon Milton's • two dramatic pieces. Gildon mentions the 
indebtedness of Dryden's ''Aureng-zebe" to "Samson" and cites 
sources for "Samson" itself. He gives brief facts regarding the 
presentation and printing of "Comus." 

1702. Bayle, Pierre. Dictionaire historique et critique. In this 
edition of his work Bayle adds material on Milton (see pp. 2112-18) 
from Toland's Life. This material deals with the poet's college 
experience and his Latin and Italian poems, which are mentioned 
with vague commendation. The surprising thing is that in the 
shuffle of revision Bayle drops all mention of Milton's major works — 
an omission notable in later editions of the Dictionaire.^ 

1705. A Complete History of Europe, from the Year 1600 to the 
Treaty of Nimeguen. Godwin {op. cit., pp. 296-97) quotes this 
work, from the year 1674: 

There is hardly anything that can make this year more remarkable 
than the death of the famous John Milton He has left us an inim- 
itable poem in blank verse, called Paradice Lost; as also Paradice Regain'd, 
Sampson Agonistes, and Occasional Poems. 

Although here the interest, being historical, is all in Milton's opin- 
ions, the mention is quotable as characteristic, and also because 
Edward Phillips, whom Warton thought ever ready to praise his 
slighted uncle, does not mention Milton's death in his continuation 
of Baker's chronicle — at least there is no mention in the 1730 edition. 
1705. Sir William Trumbull, a retired Secretary of State, on 
October 19 returned to his young friend Alexander Pope a borrowed 
copy of the minor poems, writing as follows: 

I expected to find, what I have met with, an admirable genius in those 
poems, not only because they were Milton's, or were approved by Sir Henry 

1 On Birch's (1738) revision of Bayle's unsatisfactory account of Milton see Dr. 
Good, op. cit., p. 125, notes. 

271 



88 George Sherburn 

Wotton, but because you had commended them; and give me leave to 
tell you, that I know nobody so like to equal him, even at the age he wrote 
most of them, as yourself. [From the Elwin-Courthope ed. of Pope's 
Works, VI, 2.] 

This is important as discrediting the ungenerous story by Thomas 
Warton to the effect that Pope "pilfered from COMUS and the 
PENSEROSO" epithets and phrases for "Eloisa to Abelard," "con- 
scious, that he might borrow from a book then scarcely remembered, 
without the hazard of a discovery, or the imputation of plagiarism" 
(op. cit, pp. X, xi). Warton's further story that his father was 
instrumental in bringing these poems to Pope's attention about 
1717 is discredited by Trumbull's letter as well as by Pope's early 
poems, which are saturated with the youthful work of Milton. 
"Then scarcely remembered" is an absurd phrase to apply to any- 
thing written by Milton, with "then" referring to 1717.^ 

1709. Tatler No. 98 (Steele), November 24, uses "Comus" as 
an example of the effectiveness of moral poetry. 

1711-12. The Spectator. In No. 249 (December 15, 1711) Addi- 
son quotes with praise the passage on Laughter from "L' Allegro" 
(lines 11-32). In No. 425 (July 8, 1712), lines 61-72 and 147-154 
of "II Penseroso" are quoted, ostensibly from memory. One or 
two slight misquotations make this seem actually what is being 
done. "Comus the God of Revels" is mentioned in this paper. 
One would certainly expect more quotations from these poems in 
the Spectator, but on the other hand, outside the papers on "Para- 
dise Lost" not a great deal of standard English poetry is quoted; 
attention is rather given to new poems. 

1715. Hughes, John. An Essay on Allegorical Poetry, etc. (See 
W. H. Durham, Critical Essays [1700-1725], pp. 86-104, especially 
p. 93.) Here we find quoted with admiration lines 109-20 of "II 
Penseroso." In the same essay, speaking of the story of Circe, 
Hughes remarks: "There is another Copy of the Circe, in a Mask, 
by our famous Milton; the whole Plan of which is Allegorical, and 
it is written with a very Poetical Spirit on the same Moral, tho with 
different Characters" {ibid., p. 94). 

> On Pope's indebtedness to Milton see the excellent article by Mary Stuart Leather 
in Eng. Stud., XXV, 400. 

272 



Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems 89 

1716. Dryden's Miscellany. ''The First part of Miscellany 
Poems. Containing Variety of New Translations of the ancient 
poets: Together with Several original poems. By the Most 
Eminent Hands. Publish'd by Mr . Dryden .... The Fourth 
Edition." Here, at the reputed suggestion of Fenton, were included 
"L'Allegro," "II Penseroso," and "Lycidas." They were reprinted 
in the fifth edition of this volume (1727). 

1718. Gildon, Charles. The Complete Art of Poetry. This work, 
as Warton has said, strangely neglects Milton. Gildon seems to 
have been more interested in "Samson" than in Milton's other 
poems, ^ though he apparently realized the value already attached to 
anything by Milton. ^ 

1719-21. Dennis, John. Original Letters, 1721. Under date of 
1719 Dennis (see pp. 79-80), after quoting the epigram of Selvaggi 
and the verses of "Salsiki" (sic!), and mentioning the intimacy with 
Manso, says: "Thus, you see, the Italians, by his juvenile Essays, 
discover'd the great and growing Genius of Milton, whereas his 
Countrymen knew very little of him, even thirty Years after he 
had publish'd among them the noblest Poem in the World." Den- 
nis' mistaken idea that "Paradise Lost" was recognized with shame- 
ful tardiness was very likely the father of the Warton notion about 
the minor poems. Few critics now would subscribe to Dennis' view. 

1721. Dennis, John. Original Letters. In an undated letter, 
written "about sixteen years ago" and now printed, Dennis makes 
ironical retort to Collier's "Letter: Containing a Defense of a 
Regulated Stage." He says: 

To King James succeeded King Charles the First; and then arose 
another famous Reformer, John Milton by Name, who not only left a 
Tragedy behind him, the Story of which he impiously borrow'd from the 
Bible, written, to leave him without Excuse, in his mature, nay declining 
Years, but has left a fine Encomium on Shakespear; has shewn an extraor- 
dinary Esteem for Johnson; and among all the Things that he thought 
fit to reform, so far had Prejudice laid hold of his Understanding, it never 
so much as came into his Head that the Stage was one of them 
[pp. 225-29]. 

' See The Complete Art of Poetry, p. 302; The Works of Mr. William Shakespear, 
Voliune the Seventh (published with Rowe's ed., 1710), p. Ivti; The Post-Man Robb'd 
of his Mail (1719), p. 243; and see Gildon's reworking of Laugbaine, here cited under 
1699. 

2 See under the years 1692 and 1696. 

273 



90 George Sherburn 

On pages 78-79, as Thomas Warton points out, Dennis quotes 
from the Latin poems as used in Toland's Life. 

1723. Burchet, J. "To Allan Ramsay on his Richy and Sandy. ''^ 
Printed in the Poems of Allan Ramsay (1723), p. 170. Though 
ambiguous the following lines seem a tribute to Milton's pastoral 

poems: 

Nor dost thou, Ramsay, sightless Milton wrong 

By ought contain 'd in thy melodious Song; 

For none but Addy could liis Thoughts sublime 

So well unriddle or his my stick Rhime. 

And when he deign 'd to let his Fancy rove 

Where Sun-burnt Shepherds to the Nymphs make Love, 

No one e'er told in softer Notes the Tales 

Of rm-al Pleasures in the spangled Vales.^ 

1724. Jacob, Giles. The Poetical Register; or, the Lives and 
Characters of the English Dramatick Poets. Pages 183-84 condense 
the material on Milton furnished by Langbaine's Lives, but add 
Dry den's epigram. In his Historical Account of the Lives and Writ- 
ings of the English Poets, reprinted in this same year, Jacob devotes 
pages 100-106 to Milton. The literary criticism is taken almost 
verbatim from Toland's remarks on the precocity of Milton's college 
poems (which in turn had echoed Morhof), and also from the Athe- 
nian Mercury passage of 1692 which had pronounced the minor poems 
"incomparable." (These two volumes by Jacob were printed earlier 
than 1724 [1719, 1720], but I have not seen the first editions.) 

1725. Fenton, Elijah. Life of Milton prefixed to the 1725 
edition of the Works. (I quote from an 1829 reprint.) Fenton 
praises the minor poems very highly. He finds "the Mask of 
Comus, L'Allegro, II Penseroso, and Lycidas, all in such an exquisite 
strain, that, though he had left no other monuments of his genius 
behind him, bis name had been immortal." 

1730. Mareuil. Le Paradis reconquis, traduit de I'Anglois de 
Milton; avec quelques autres Pieces de Poesies. "The four Pieces," 
remarks Birch {Life of Milton, pp. Iv-lvi), "which the Translator 
has added, are Lycidas, Allegro, II Penseroso, and the Ode on Christ's 
Nativity." 

» Is this the passage referred to by Dr. Good, p. 141, n. 8? I have not seen the 
1731 ed. of Ramsay. 

274 



Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems 91 

Translation in quantity is very much more likely to result from 
a general fame of the works than from a personal partiality 
for them. 

1730. Fenton, Elijah. Observations on some of Mr. Waller's 
Poems. On page c, in commenting on Waller's lines "To Mr. 
Henry Lawes," Fenton quotes Milton's sonnet to Lawes. 

1731. Rowe, Elizabeth Singer. Letters moral and entertaining, 
Part II. That the minor poems were even by 1731 dear to the 
soft sentimentalists may be seen by the following: "As I was sitting 
in a summerhouse, my usual retreat in an afternoon, reading Mil- 
ton's Elegy on Lycidas, a downy slumber closed my eyes, and sunk 
my sorrows in the pleasing oblivion" (quoted from Mrs. Rowe's 
Works [1796], I, 240). 

1732. Bentley, Richard, editor. Paradise Lost. In this notori- 
ous edition Bentley uses the minor poems only once for illustrative 
material. He cites on page 2 " Comus," lines 43-44. This is doubt- 
less to be classified as "neglect" of the minor poems. 

1732. Pearce, Zachary. Review of the Text of Milton's Paradise 
Lost. Thomas Warton (p. xi) says that in this book the minor 
poems "frequently furnish collateral evidences in favour of the 
established text; and in the refutation of Bentley 's chimerical 
corrections." 

1732. Morhof, Daniel George. Polyhistor Literarius (3d ed.). 
From Tomus I, Liber VII, cap. iii ("De Poetis Recentioribus"), 

p. 1070: "Recensuimus praecipuos Poetarum Latinorum 

Ab Anglis commendari J oh. Miltonus, ut in Anglicis, ita in Latinis 
poematibus, solet." Here, as in practically all the encyclopedic 
mentions of Milton from the very start, we find admiration of his 
lesser poetry taken for granted. 

1733. Theobald, Lewis, editor. The Works of Shakespeare. In 
the Preface to Volume I, while commenting on the opening of 
"Twelfth Night," Theobald remarks: "The general beauties of 
those two poems of MILTON, intitled, U Allegro and II Penseroso, 
are obvious to all readers, because the descriptions are the most 
poetical in the world."* He proceeds to show that these two poems 

» On this passage see Warburton's letter to Birch (1737) in Nichols' Literary History, 
II, 81. 

275 



92 George Sherburn 

with much art use the same images but excite opposite emotions 
by the different moods in which the images are presented. 

1734. Richardson, J. Explanatory Notes and Remarks on 
Milto7i's Paradise Lost. By J. Richardson, Father and Son, With a 
LIFE of the Author, and a Discourse on the Poem. By J. R. Sen. 
It is impossible to quote all the enthusiastic praise the minor poems 
receive in this volume. 'Tor their Dignity and Excellence they 
are sufficient to have set him among the most Celebrated of the 
Poets, even of the Ancients themselves; his Mask and Lycidas are 
perhaps Superior to all in their Several Kinds" (p. xv). Richard- 
son has heard "Lycidas" placed above Theocritus. As explanatory 
material, or notes, for "Paradise Lost," passages are cited from other 
works the following number of times: from "Paradise Regain'd," 7; 
"Comus," 4; "II Penseroso," 2; Sonnets, 2; one each from 
"L' Allegro," "Lycidas," and "Samson." Ten citations are from 
the Latin poems and seven from the prose works. Shakespeare is 
cited eleven times; Spenser, ten; Chaucer, two; and Cowley and 
Crashaw, once each. I note no citations from other English 
poets. 

1734. Jortin, John. Remarks on Spenser^s Poems. Pages 171- 
86 of this slight volume are devoted to "Paradise Lost," "Paradise 
Regain'd," and "Samson." The book consists mainly of quota- 
tions, with a bit of comment. Except for quoting two lines of 
"Lycidas" (p. 185), Jortin neglects the poems that interest us. 

1734. In this year Warburton and Theobald were in correspond- 
ence annotating passages of the minor poems. See John Nichols' 
Illustrations, II, 634, 648. Annotation usually follows rather than 
precedes popularity. 

1735. Buncombe, William. Poems by John Hughes, with some 
select essays. In his prefatory account of Hughes' life Buncombe 
quotes "Lycidas," lines 70-86, with application to Hughes. 

1737. Warburton, writing to Birch in this year, remarks 
(Nichols' Illustrations, II, 79) of Milton: "He is the author of three 
perfect pieces of Poetry. His 'Paradise Lost,' 'Samson Agonistes,' 
and * Masque at Ludlow Castle.'" And again he says (ibid., p. 81): 
"The 'L' Allegro' and 'II Penseroso' are certainly masterpieces in 
their kind." 

276 



Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems 93 

1738. Hayward, Thomas. The British Muse, or, A Collection of 
Thoughts Moral, Natural, and Sublime, of our English Poets. The Pref- 
ace (by William Oldys) says on page xx: ''In his choice of authors, 
he (i.e., the collector) has not used the noted poets of later date, as 
Milton, Cowley, Waller, Dryden, Otway, Lee, Prior, Congreve, and 
such of their successors as adorn our own times; he has chosen 
rather to devote himself to neglected and expiring merit." Never- 
theless Thomas Warton (p. vii) adds this work to the list of anthol- 
ogies that unreasonably neglect the minor poems. One need only 
quote Godwin (op. cit., p. 287), who finds this omission by Hayward 

"no way extraordinary Hajovard was far from suspecting 

what Warton has discovered, that Milton, either his larger, or his 
smaller poems, was a hidden treasure, or that his excellencies were 
among such as 'time and oblivion were on the point of cancelling.'" 
Of the five anthologies cited by Warton as his major proof of the 
neglect of the poems under consideration, it must now be evident 
that only two — those by Bysshe and Gildon — could properly have 
been mentioned. 

1738. Birch, Thomas. A Life of Milton by Birch was prefixed 
to his edition of the Complete Prose Works in this year. In this 
Life Birch pays much attention to the minor poems and gives them 
high praise. His point of view is scholarly as well as appreciative, 
for he gives many facts about the poems and even collates the 
manuscripts of some to improve the text. This is the sort of work 
that is done on poems already popular — not the sort that would 
increase the general popularity of the poems. 

1740. Peck, Francis. New Memoirs of the Life and Poetical 
Works of Mr. John Milton. This curious work seems to be a print- 
ing of notes and "commonplace-book" remarks that Peck had 
been accumulating (see p. 84 for evidence of accumulative writing). 
Much space and praise are awarded the minor poems, which receive 
annotation in pages 132-70. The epics are dealt with in pages 
171-211. 

In completing this section of our evidence it may be well to 
observe that in Theobald, Warburton, Birch, and Peck we have a 
strongly developed tendency to treat the poems not primarily as 

277 



94 George Sherburn 

subjects of eulogy — though these commentators all praise highly — 
but as matter for historical study. Earlier we have seen the poems 
meet most astonishing recognition in 1657 from Poole, and we have 
seen them as objects of enthusiasm in the criticism of Edward 
Phillips, the Athenian Mercunj, Toland, and Fenton. Both these 
strains of appreciation are evidence of a popularity which in the 
late thirties of the eighteenth century resulted in the poems' being 
used with musical settings. In 1738 Dr. Arne wrote music for the 
Rev, John Dalton's version of "Comus"; in 1739 Charles Jennens 
made an arrangement of "L' Allegro" and "II Penseroso" — adding 
a third section, "II Moderato" — which Handel set to music. This 
music, according to Joseph Warton, was what rescued the poems 
from obscurity! In 1742 Handel made an oratorio out of "Sam- 
son," and there were later less eminent attempts on "Paradise 
Lost" and "Lyciclas." If the passages quoted in the preceding 
pages indicate anything, they seem to indicate that Joseph Warton 
was mistaken in thinking these musical settings a cause instead of 
a result of popularity. 

It is true that there are a few volumes in which we should expect 
to find Milton's minor poems praised, or at least mentioned, but 
in which the authors are quite silent about them. These volumes, 
however, are rare — much rarer than Thomas Warton apparently 
thought them. And when criticized — except by Saumaise and 
Dryden — the minor poems are always commended, usually with 
superlative praise. The case might rest here; but since the littera- 
teurs of this period were fully as imitative as they were critical, it 
may be worth while to note some of the many borrowings from the 
minor poems before 1740. 



278 



Ill 

There is hardly room here for a discussion of the theories of 
imitation prevalent in the years 1645-1740.^ Luckily the large 
facts of the case are generally known. In the earHer part of this 
period imitation of classical genres was the duty of every poet. 
Such imitation produced "Paradise Lost," "Samson Agonistes," 
and dozens of lesser creations in the several approved "kinds." 
Meanwhile, there was relatively little attention to types struck 
out by modern or English poets. Such writers were mainly utilized 
as storehouses of excellent phrases, and their diction was frequently 
echoed by their successors. Hence the value of the phrasal digests 
made by such men as Poole, Bysshe, and Gildon. Borrowing 
phrases was not necessarily a covert proceeding, as Thomas Warton 
seems to have thought (op. cit., pp. x, xi), though it was apparently 
more creditable to borrow from the ancients than from the moderns. 
The poet, if successful, made some new or clever application of the 
phrase borrowed, whereupon he was frequently content to advertise 
the fact by printing the source in a footnote, or by printing the 
borrowed phrase in italics. Early in the eighteenth century occa- 
sional quotation marks indicate borrowings, but this present-day 
method was then rare. In most of his poems, for example. Pope 
called attention to his classical borrowings — and decidedly less often 
to his English borrowings — in footnotes. Not late in the century 
the hold of the classical "kinds" on poets began to weaken, and 
imitations of various English and French poets became more fre- 
quent. The numberless imitations of Milton's minor poems, or, 
to be more exact, of "L'Allegro" and "II Penseroso" around 1750 
do not necessarily imply a sudden awakening to the merits of these 
poems; the fact is merely that, Horace's Satires and Ovid's Heroides 

1 A very interesting comment on some phases of imitation may be foimd in the 
University of North Carolina Studies in Philology, XV, 195-206: "Imitation of Spenser 
and Milton in the early Eighteenth Century: a new Docmnent," by R. S. Crane. 

515] 147 [MoDEEN Philology, January, 1920 



148 George Sherburn 

having had their day, poets moved on to Boileau, Fontenelle, 
La Fontaine, Spenser, Cowley, Butler, and Milton. 

The early imitations of the minor poems here to be cited consist 
mainly of phrasal echoes. In fact, it is difficult to distinguish 
structural imitation of most of the poems, because they themselves 
follow well-established types. One cannot tell surely whether a 
pastoral elegy follows "Lycidas," Theocritus, Bion, Virgil, Sanna- 
zaro, or Spenser. Imitations of "L'Allegro," "II Penseroso," and 
"Comus" are perhaps easiest to detect, a fact which may explain 
in part why more of them have been noted. Someone may observe 
that the parallels here noted are mainly later than 1700. It is true 
that the poetry read from the seventeenth century has yielded slight 
return, whereas the early eighteenth-century parallels seem inex- 
haustible.^ 

Organization of the citations again is a problem. Since the 
passages from Milton are not to be printed, it seems wise to arrange 
the parallels in the order of the passages which they recall. This 
method, of course, is faulty because not infrequently two different 
Milton poems — sometimes three — are reflected in one passage. 

A rough chronological summary may be given. From the seven- 
teenth century there are parallels in the poems of at least eight 
different authors. The first decade of the eighteenth century has 
furnished about two dozen parallels from about twelve different 
sources; the second decade, thirty-five from twenty-four sources; 
the third, sixty-five from over thirty sources; the fourth, over 
thirty from less than twenty sources. There would be a total of 
about fifty different men, of all descriptions, echoing the minor 
poems in this period. Some poems cited are anonymous, and may 
be by the same author: this invahdates any rigidly exact summary 
in figures. 

It may be useful also to mention together the individual poets 
of the period who were most notable borrowers from these poems. 
The earliest and most glaring case — in which borrowing becomes 
rank plagiarism — is the Cyprian Academy of Robert Baron (1647). 

» Professor C. A. Moore in Mod. Lang. Notes, XXXIV, 278-81, has just pointed out 
interesting influences of the minor poems on W. Hinchliffe's "Seasons" (1718), which I 
have not seen. Hinchliffe justly seems an important link in the tradition leading from 
Milton to Thomson. 

516 



Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems 149 

Thomas Warton (pp. 403-7) has cited sufficiently numerous parallels 
from this curious work. Baron drew perhaps most frequently from 
the **Comus, " but he slighted nothing, using even the sonnets and 
the Marchioness of Winchester poem. The plagiarism was con- 
demned; for in his Pocula Castalia (1650) in an Epigram to Momus 
(p. 124) Baron says: 

My Book, like Persius, 'gainst the wall he hurries 
Saying, Dicitque tibi tua Pagina fur es. 

Another type of indebtedness is seen in the mid-century work 
of Andrew Marvell, who in his poem ''Upon Appleton House" 
seems influenced by the structure of the two poems *'L' Allegro" 
and "II Penseroso." Grosart in his edition of Marvell points out 
that line 610 of this poem has the phrase "gadding vines" from 
"Lycidas," line 40. I have seen no other close verbal parallels. 

In the earher eighteenth century Pope is doubtless the most 
illustrious borrower of phrases from the minor poems, and Thomson 
is the most illustrious borrower of mood and detail. Others whose 
work was colored by the poems are John Hughes, whose "Calypso 
and Telemachus" is reminiscent of "Comus" in plot; Parnell, 
who has many pieces tinged with "II Penseroso"; Moses Browne, 
whose "Piscatory Eclogues" (1727, 1739) are full of echoes; David 
Mallet, who blends Thomson with Milton; and William Hamilton, 
some of whose poems written before 1740 are very close to "II 
Penseroso." Hamilton must have had an auditory rather than a 
visual memory for this poem, for in "Contemplation" he seems 
to have translated "black, staid Wisdom's hue" ("II Penseroso," 
1. 16) into "Wisdom's black-stay'd train." This version is an 
extreme specimen of the "hash" poets made of these popular 
poems. 

A. "l'allegro" 

It is difficult to separate " L' Allegro" and "II Penseroso," 
especially when it comes to substantial imitations. Gay, for 
instance, in his "Rural Sports" (1713), Canto I, follows "L'Allegro" 
(11. 41-90) in lines 31-52, and then shifting, follows "II Penseroso" 
(11. 131-50; 51-76) in lines 53-90 and 105-14. Dyer in 1726 pub- 
lished "Grongar Hill" and "The Country Walk," which in a manner 

517 



150 George Sherburn 

are companion pieces after the model of these two Milton poems. ^ 
In "An Epistle from a Gentleman to his Friend in the Country" 
(in the Bee for April 26, 1733 [I, 542-43]) the emphasis is rather on 
"II Penseroso" and the night details, but the resemblance is real. 
The Gentleman's Magazine, April, 1735 (V, 215), has a poem in the 
vein of "L' Allegro" written "To Sylvan Urban" recounting the 
pleasures of a day in the country. After noting these general, 
structural imitations, we may pass to consideration of imitations 
of specific passages of "L' Allegro." 

Since the yrocul este and the invocation of the start seem very 
popular, two or three imitations of them need quotation. Mrs. 
Elizabeth Rowe in an early poem "To Mrs. Arabella Marrow, in 
the Country" writes (11. 21 ff.) : 

Hence ye gilded toys of state, 
Ye formal follies of the great. 
Nor e'er disturb this peaceful seat; 

and in Amintor's poem "On our Saviour's Nativity" in her Letters 
moral and entertaining (Letter XII, dated 1733) we read: 

Fly, rigid Winter, with thy horid face. 

And let the soft and lovely Spring take place; 

Oh! come thou fairest season of the year, 

With garlands deck'd and verdant robes appear. 

John Hughes (d. 1720) in a paraphrase of Horace's "Integer vitae" 
went out of his way to write -^ 

Hence slavish Fear! thy Stygian Wings display! 

Thou ugly Fiend of Hell, away! 

Wrapp'd in thick Clouds, and Shades of Night, 

To conscious Souls direct thy Flight! 

There brood on Guilt, fix there a loath'd Embrace, 

And propagate vain Terrors, Frights, 

Dreams, GobUns, and imagin'd Sprights, 

Thy visionary Tribe 

I For Dyer's indebtedness to Milton see an article in the Journal of English and 
Germanic Philology, XVI, 274-81, by Professor Garland Greever. In general, I save 
space by not citing persons who have pointed out parallels that I use. I am willing to 
disclaim any credit there may be in finding the parallels that are exclusively my own, 
if there be any credit; for I have no interest in the parallels as such — merely as proof 
that the poem's paralleled were known and liked. It is only just, however, to mention 
with thanks the many editors of Pope, from Warburton down ; the edition of the ' ' Seasons ' ' 
by Zippel; G. C. Macaulay's Life of Thomson; Professor J. E. Wells's additions to Macau- 
lay's lists of parallels ( see Mod. Lang. Notes, XXIV, 60-61); and Mary Stuart Leather's 
article on "Pope as a Student of Milton" in Eng. Stud., XXV, 400 S. 

^ Poems (1735), I, 113. 

518 



Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems 151 

Among briefer phrasal echoes of the opening passage may be noted 
the "Stygian caves" found in Thomson's "Upon Happiness" (1. 90); 
and the "low-brow'd rocks" of Pope's "Eloisa" (1. 244). A palpable 
copying of Milton's parentage of "heart-easing Mirth" (1. 13) 
appears in John Phihps' "Cyder" (1708; Chalmers, VIII, 393-S4): 

Now solemn Rites he pays 
To Bacchus, Author of Heart-cheering Mirth. 

The invitation of "L' Allegro" (11. 25-40) was also frequently 
imitated. Lines 25 and 26 are echoed in "The Happy Lover's 
Invocation to Night" {Gent. Mag., Ill, 487): 

Night! to lovers joys a friend, 
Haste, and thy assistance lend; 
Hasten, godess, lock up day, 
Bring the wiUing Nymph away .... 

Isaac Hawkins Brown, avowedly imitating Swift, writes in Imita- 
tion VI of his "Pipe of Tobacco" {Gent. Mag., VI, 105): 

Come jovial pipe, and bring along 
Midnight revelry and song. 

Dr. Hoadly's "Verses under the Prints of Mr. Hogarth's Rake's 
Progress" (1735) used the minor poems for matter, and hence the 
lines under plate II may be quoted, though not especially close to 
"L'Allegro": 

PLEASURE, in her silver throne, 
SmiUng comes, nor comes alone; 
Venus comes with her along. 
And smooth Lyaeus ever young; 
And in their train, to fill the press, 
Come apish Dance, and swoU'n Excess, 
Mechanic Honour, vicious Taste, 
And Fashion in her changing vest. 

Philips' "Cyder" Hsts some figures familiar in the train of Mirth 
(Chalmers, VIII, 389) : 

Heav'n's sweetest Blessing, hail! 
Be thou the copious Matter of my Song 
And thy choice Nectar; on wliich always waits 
Laughter, and Sport, and care-beguiling Wit .... 
519 



152 George Sherburn 

Pamell (d. 1718) had absorbed the minor poems before writing his 
eclogue "Health" (see Chalmers, IX, 361): 

Come, country goddess, come; nor thou suffice. 
But bring thy mountain-sister, Exercise. 



Oh come, thou goddess of my rural song, 

And bring thy daughter, cahn Content along, 

Dame of the ruddy cheek and laughing eye. 

From whose bright presence clouds of sorrow fly ... . 

Now to grave books I bid the mind retreat .... 

Green's "Grotto" in Dodsley's Collection, V, 162-63, exclaims:^ 

Let not profane this sacred place, 
Hypocrisy with Janus' face; 



Or frolic Mirth profanely loud, 
And happy only in a crowd; 
Or Melancholy's pensive gloom, 
Proxy in Contemplation's room. 

William Hamilton in his "Contemplation" (written 1739) addresses 
Devotion, saying: 

Sure thine to put to flight the boy 

Of laughter, sport, and idle joy. 

The landscape details of early morning are dangerously conven- 
tional, but either because of obvious resemblance or of Miltonic 
details in the context the following parallels seem quotable : 
Before the yellow barn I see 
A beautiful variety 
Of strutting cocks, advancing stout. 

[Dyer's "Country Walk," 11. 9-11. Cf. L'A., 
11. 51-52.] 

Here let me frequent roam, preventing morn. 
Attentive to the cock, whose early throat. 
Heard from the distant village in the vale. 
Crows cheerly out, far-sounding through the gloom. 

[Mallet's "Excursion" (1726) in Chalmers, XIV, 17. Cf. 
L'A., 1. 54, etc.] 



> Cf. also "II Penseroso," 1. 54. Green's poem is advertised in Dodsley as "printed 
in the Year 1732, but never published." 

520 



Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems 153 

Hygeia's sons with hound and horn, 
And jovial cry awake the Morn. 

[Green's "Spleen" (1737),i 11. 73-74. Cf. L'A., 
11. 53-54.] 

This part of "L' Allegro" is, as Professor J. E. Wells has indicated,^ 
reflected in the details of Thomson's "Morning in the Country," 
especially in line 2, where 

The morning springs in thousand liveries drest. 
Moses Browne's "Piscatory Eclogues" (1st ed., 1727), as quoted 
in the Gentleman^ s Magazine, VIII (1738), 432, show the conven- 
tional whistling ploughboy in a Miltonic manner : 

The plow-boy, o'er the furrows whistles blith, 
And in the mead the mower whets his syth. 

And possibly John Philips' "Cyder" should also be quoted: 

this the Peasants bUth 

Will quaff, and whistle, as thy tinkling Team 
They drive. 

Milton's "russet lawns" and high embosoming trees (L'A., 11. 71, 
78) are appealing; witness Pope's "Windsor Forest," 11. 23 and 
27, Thomson's "Winter" (1726 version), 1. 74, and a poem called 
"Stoke's Bay" in the Gentleman's Magazine, IX (1739), 263-64, 
which has: 

Here the tall grove surrounds the rural seat. 
There russet downs the distant view compleat. 

Thomson's "Autumn" has also a "russet mead" (1. 971) suitable 
for solitary and pensive wandering. Milton allows "the nibbling 
flock" to "stray" here (1. 72); Thomson lets his "nibbHng flock 
stray o'er the rising hills" in line 13 of "On Beauty," a poem full 
of echoes of this passage of "L' Allegro" and of "II Penseroso," 
11. 56-59. Thomson's "Spring," 1. 954, has "villages embosom'd 
soft in trees." 

Passing to the country sports, we find Gay ("Rural Sports," 
Canto I, 11. 31, 32) echoing "L'Allegro" (11. 91, 92) in rhyme at least 
when he exclaims: 

'Tis not that rural sports alone invite 

But all the grateful country breathes delight. 

> The rural images of this poem, especially in 11. 630-87, have at least general resem- 
blance to "L'Allegro" and "II Penseroso." 
2 Mod. Lang. Notes, XXIV. 60. 

521 



154 George Sherburn 

The "chequer'd shade" (L'A., 1. 96) appealed to Pope ("Lines to 
Gay," 1. 7) and Dyer ("Grongar Hill," 1. 27); and Pope also hked 
the later pleasures of the "spicy nutbrown bowl" ("Wife of Bath's 
Prologue," 1. 214; cf. L'A., 1. 100). Milton's passage on the super- 
stitious tales told at night (11. 101-16) found appreciative reflection 
in Thomson's "Autumn," 11. 1145-56 and "Winter," 11. 617-20. 

The transition to the city was early used by Andrew Marvell, 
who in "The Garden" (11. 11, 12), speaking to Quiet and Innocence, 

says: 

Mistaken long, I sought you then 
In busy companies of men. 

The city pleasures have fewer echoes than those of the country. 
Thomson has a poetically "haunted stream" in "Summer," 11. 
11, 12 (L'A., 1. 130), but for the rest I have noted only parallels — • 
some doubtful — to the Shakespeare passage (L'A., 11. 131-34): 
Whether in masks he pleas'd the town; 
The buskin or the sock put on ... . 

["Epitaph for the Late Lord Lansdown" in Gent. Mag., 
VII, 508 (August, 1737).] 

Is not wild Shakespeare thine and nature's boast ? 
[Thomson's "Summer," 1. 1566.] 

And while by Art your charming Numbers move, 
Her Wood-tvild Notes instruct her to improve 
[Nahum Tate, "To the Athenian Society ."l^ 

Warble the birds, exulting on the wing. 

And aU the wood-wild notes the genial blessings sing 

[Wm. Thompson, "The Nativity" (1736); see Chalmers, 
XV, 19.] 

A final parallel — to hne 137 — may be added from the prose of 
the Gentleman's Magazine (VII, 195), where the writer says: "Mil- 
ton elegantly expressed it. Music was married to Poetry." We 
have here in all something like forty-four parallels from about 
twenty-five authors, in poems all dating before 1740. 

B. "iL PENSEROSO" 

The mood of "II Penseroso" was so thoroughly in tune with the 
mood of the many poems on retirement, night, etc., produced in 

1 This poem was prefixed to Gildon's History of the Athenian Society (1692) 
and reprinted by Dunton in his Life and Errors (1705), p. 259. "Her" refers to Tate's 
Muse. 

522 



Early Popularity op Milton's Minor Poems 155 

this period, that it would be strange indeed if Milton's poem did 
not find imitators. Among the poems of a melancholy cast that 
seem to have a general indebtedness to "II Penseroso" may be 
listed the following: John Hughes's "Thought in a Garden" (1704); 
"Pre-existence: A Poem in Imitation of Milton, "^ published first 
in 1714 with a preface by J. B., and reprinted in Dodsley's Collection 
(1766), I, 158-72, (see especially p. 166); Parnell's "Night Piece on 
Death," "Hymn to Contentment," and "Hermit"; James Ralph's 
"Night" (1728); Thomson's Seasons in various passages ;2 and 
perhaps Mallet's "Excursion" (1728), his "Hermit," and his 
"Funeral Hymn"; a poem in the Gentleman's Magazine, IX (1739), 
599 beginning "Hail Melancholy! gloomy power"; and lastly the 
early work of William Hamilton, to be quoted presently. 

We may most conveniently follow through the parallels to 
"II Penseroso" as we did those to "L'Allegro." The first lines 
indeed were largely treated with the opening of "L'Allegro," but 
we may add Broome's fines from his ode "Melancholy" (1723): 

Adieu, vain mirth, and noisy joys! 

Ye gay desires, deluding toys! 

Thou, thoughtful Melancholy, deign 

To hide me in thy pensive train! 

The invitation to Melancholy (11, 31 ff.) found almost endless imita- 
tion. Hamilton, in his poem "To the Countess of Eglintoun"' 
(1726), even appfies to Happiness the sedate Miltonic adjectives: 
Nun sober and devout! why art thou fled 
To hide in shades thy meek contented head ? 
Virgin of aspect mild! ah why unkind, 
Fly'st thou displeas'd, the commerce of mankind ? 
0! teach our steps to find the secret cell 
Where with thy sire Content thou lov'st to dwell. 
Similarly in "Contemplation" (written 1739) after Faith and Hope 
have been invited, he proceeds in Miltonic fashion: 
And bring the meek-ey'd Charity,'* 
Not least, though youngest of the three: 



> See Notes and Queries for Jan. 5, 1907 (10 ser., VII, 4). 

2 See the Cambridge History of English Literature, X, 108; Zippel remarks a resem- 
blance in the first form of "Winter," 11. 33-300, to Milton's poem from 1. 45 on; Professor 
Wells has thought "Spring," 11. 1024-47, worth citing; and there are other passages. 

3 Hamilton's poems are quoted from Chalmers, Vol. XV. 
* Cf. "meek-ey'd Peace" in the "Nativity Hymn," 1. 46. 

523 



156 George Sherburn 

With Silence, sober-suited maid, 

Seldom on this earth survey 'd: 

Bid in this sacred band appear, 

That aged venerable seer, 

With sorrowing pale, with watchings spare, 

Of pleasing yet dejected air, 

Him, heavenly Melancholy hight, 

Who flies the sons of false dehght, 



Last to crown all, with these be join'd 
The decent nun, fair Peace of Mind, 
Whom innocence, ere yet betray'd, 
Bore in Eden's happy shade. 

Hamilton continues presently with an address to Devotion quite 
in this same strain. In this one poem he has echoes not only of 
"II Penseroso" but of ''L' Allegro," ''Lycidas," and the "Nativity 
Hymn." Thomson likewise goes to Milton when he wishes to 
summon his Amanda:^ 

Come with those downcast eyes, sedate and sweet, 
Those looks demure that deeply pierce the soul. 

Milton would doubtless prefer to think the following address to 
Delia (Queen Caroline?) from Green's "Grotto" as "without 
father bred," but it seems Miltonic — though it is Milton sadly 

debased : 

Come Nymph with rural honors drest, 
Virtue's exterior form confest. 
With charms untarnished, innocence 
Display, and Eden shall commence: 
When thus you come in sober fit, 
And wisdom is prefer 'd to wit; 
And looks diviner graces tell. 
Which don't with giggling muscles dwell. 

The use of the somber details (11. 34, 35) of Milton's invitation pass- 
age with intentionally gloomy effect is perhaps best seen in a passage 
in Parnell's "Night Piece on Death": 

Why then thy flowing sable stoles, 
Deep pendent cypress, mourning poles. 
Loose scarfs to fall athwart thy weeds. 
Long palls, drawn hearses, cover'd steeds, 
And plumes of black, that, as they tread. 
Nod o'er the escutcheons of the dead ? 

1 "Spring," 11. 4S5-86. Cf. also "L" Allegro," 1. 138. 

524 



Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems 157 

Mallet in his "Excursion" presents Night in a pensive fashion less 

gloomy: 

Onward she comes with silent step and slow, 
In her brown mantle wrapt, and brings along 
The still, the mild, the melancholy hour. 
And Meditation, with his eye on Heaven. 

Mallet here has made especial use of lines 38 and 39. Parallels 
to line 42 are strangely few; at least the only one I have seen is 
in Pope's "Eloisa" (1. 24): 

I have not yet forgot myseK to stone. 
In "Grongar Hill" (1. 115) similarly is the only use noted of the 
"trim gardens" of line 50. 

"The cherub Contemplation" as conceived by Milton in his 
poem (1. 54) and in "Comus" (1. 377) was thought by Newton to 
be new and less satisfactory than Spenser's figure of venerable 
age.^ Both conceptions are met with in our period. Hamilton in 
his poem "Contemplation" gives a Miltonic treatment; Green 
("The Grotto," 1. 166) places Contemplation with other figures 
from "II Penseroso"; and perhaps two lines from Mrs. Elizabeth 
Rowe's Letters moral and entertaining (1729) reflect Milton: 
Upon its banks you, undisturb'd may ly. 
While Contemplation wafts you to the sky.^ 

Passages concerning Philomela and the moon are usually too 
conventional to be associated specifically with Milton's famous lines 
56-72. The moon affords more and better parallels, two of which 
are worth quoting: 

Now stooping, seems to kiss the passing cloud: 
Now, o'er the pure Cerulean, rides sublime 
'-[Thomson's "Winter" (1726 version), U. 91, 92; cf. 
"II Penseroso," U. 67-68, 71-72, and "Comus," 
11. 331-33]. 

Now while Phoebus riding high 
[Dyer's "Grongar Hill," 1. 11]. 

The sound of Milton's curfew (1. 76) had at least one astonishing 
echo. The Gruh-street Journal for February 5, 1730, in distinguishing 

» See Newton's ed. of Milton's Works, III, 372, note on "U Penseroso," 1. 52; 
and compare "Faerie Queene," I, Canto X, II. 46-48, for the figure "of a venerable old 
man." In his "Hymn to Heavenly Beauty," 11. 133-36, Spenser seems to me to furnish 
sufficient source for a soaring Contemplation. 

2 Quoted from her Works (1796), I, 172. 

525 



158 George Sherburn 

between "the Parnassian and the Grubean fashions" of imitating 

Milton, cites as example of the latter, John Dennis' "Poem on the 

battle of Blenheim." Dennis writes thus of the Danube: 

.... thy brown billows sounding on the shore 

And swinging slow with hoarse and sullen roar, 

Kept murmuring comfort to thy threat'ning moan. 

James Ralph's "Night" is also criticized in the Journal essay. 
It is interesting to see any periodical in 1730 assuming that imita- 
tion of Milton — minor poems included — is prevalent, and attempting 
to set bounds to the mode. 

The night scene indoors is easily conventionalized, but at least 
two similar passages seem influenced by Milton (11. 79 ff.). John 
Philips in "Cyder" (Chalmers, VIII, 388) writes: 
. . . . lo! thoughtful of Thy Gain, 
Not of my Own, I all the live-long Day 
Consiune in Meditation deep, recluse 
From human Converse, nor, at shut of Eve, 
Enjoy Repose; but oft at Midnight Lamp 
Ply my brain-racking Studies .... 

Certainly the mood, probably the "midnight lamp" also, comes 
from "II Penseroso" (cf. 1. 85). But the most famous imitation is 
found in the 1726 version of "Winter," lines 256-58: 
A rural, shelter'd, solitary. Scene; 
Where ruddy Fire, and beaming Tapers join 
To chase the cheerless gloom : there let me sit 
And hold high Converse with the mighty Dead. 

The outdoor details of the following day are more often copied, 
especially the "twilight groves" (1. 133), which fitted the very 
popular theme of retirement. The earlier details of morning are 
sometimes used; at least a faint echo of Milton's lines (128-29) on 
the morning breeze is to be found in Pope's "Winter," line 80: 

.... when the whisp'ring breeze, 
Pants on the leaves, and dies upon the trees. 

Pope's "Eloisa" (1. 163) borrows the "twilight groves," as do the 
following lines from Thomson's "Autumn" (11. 1030-31), which also 
embody an echo of "L'Allegro," line 78: 

Oh! bear me then to vast embowering shades, 

To twilight groves, and visionary vales. 
526 



Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems 159 

The ease with which shade and retirement are associated is apparent 
in Broome's "Poem on the Seat of the War in Flanders, chiefly 
with relation to the sieges : with the praise of peace and retirement. 
Written in 1710," where Broome entreats: 

Come, thou chaste maid, here let me stray 
While the calm hours steal unperceived away; 
Here court the Muses, while the Sun on high 
Flames in the vault of Heaven, and fires the sky: 
Or while the night's dark wings this globe surround. 
And the pale Moon begins her solemn round. 

And in the morning he reads old books "reclin'd" in silence "on a 
mossy bed." The latter half of an undated "Fragment" by Mallet^ 
shows ahke the influence of this noon-time passage and of similar 
passages in "L'Allegro" and the Seasons. The bee, which Milton 
artfully (11. 142-43) and Mallet casually introduce, was made 
more consciously a part of a similar scene in Canto I, lines 83-86 
of Gay's "Rural Sports": 

The careful insect 'midst his works I view, 
Now from the flowers exhaust the fragrant dew; 
With golden treasures load his little thighs, 
And steer his distant journey through the skies. 

Thomson ("Summer," 11. 627-28) seems to have an eye on Gay as 
well as on Milton, for his bee 

Strays diligent, and with the extracted balm 

Of fragrant woodbine loads his little thigh. 

Todd, in his note to line 152,^ cites a highly interesting passage 
from the first version of Thomson's "Sunamer": 

And, frequent, in the middle watch of night, 
Or, all day long, in desarts still, are heard, 
Now here, now there, now wheeling in mid sky, 
Around, or underneath, aerial sounds. 
Sent from angelick harps, and voices join'd; 
A happiness bestow'd by us alone. 
On Contemplation, or the haUow'd ear 
Of poet, swelling to seraphick strain. 

The scene within the church (11. 155-66) made notable appeal 
to Pope and Addison. The "storied halls" of the "Essay on Man," 

» Chalmers, XIV. 14. 

2 Milton's Poetical Works (1809), VI, 135, note. 

527 



160 George Sherburn 

Epistle IV, line 303, is thought a reminiscence of Milton's "storied 
windows." Certainly in "Eloisa" (11, 143-44) Pope succeeds in 
producing the romantic thrill of Milton's church : 

Where awful arches make a noon-day night, 
And the dim windows shed a solemn light; 

as he does also in line 353 : 

From the full choir, when loud Hosannas rise. 
Addison conveniently adopted some of Milton's organ details into 
his "Ode for St. Cecilia's Day" (1699): 

Next, let the solemn organ join 

Religious airs, and strains divine, 

Such as may lift us to the skies. 

And set all Heaven before our eyes. 

It is possible also that John Pomfret, at some time about the same 
date, had line 165 in his mind when he wrote, in "Love Triumphant 
over Reason" (Chalmers, VIII, 313) : 

My ravish'd soul, with secret wonder frought, 

Lay all dissolv'd in ecstacy of thought. 

The figurative use of "dissolve," however, seems generally popular 
with both Milton and Pomfret. 

From the ending of the poem we have the phrase "mossy cell" 
imitated in Dyer's "Grongar Hill" (1. 15) and doubtless many other 
poems. Pope's "Sunamer" (1. 32) palpably adapts line 172 of 
"II Penseroso" into: 

And ev'ry plant that drinks the morning dew. 

It is well known that John Hughes thought the ending might be 
improved by adding eight rather moral lines of his own composition. 
They may be read in Chalmers, X, 55. 

Even if we had no other evidence, it seems to the writer that 
the preceding parallels prove sufficiently that English poets had, 
before 1740, thoroughly masticated — rather than mastered — the 
idiom of "L' Allegro" and "II Penseroso." 

C. "COMUS" 

Imitations of the genre of "Comus" are naturally not numerous, 
for the masque was a declining type before the eighteenth century. 
Nevertheless one may note in Baron's Cyprian Academy (1648) 

528 



Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems 161 

two works, "Bona Deorum" and "Gripus and Hegio," which are 
indebted to Milton's poem. In 1712 John Hughes brought out 
an opera called Calypso and Telemachus, which is obviously reminis- 
cent of "Comus" in plot. The designs of Calypso are sufficiently 
indicated in the words of Mentor to Telemachus: 

She still deludes thee. 

Th' alluring cup she lately gave 

Was filled with noxious Juice 

T' inslave thy Reason's nobler Pow'rs.^ 

Dr. Good (p. 35, note) also lists "Sabrina, a Masque .... 
Founded on the Comus of Milton" as printed in 1737. It was by 
Rolli, and was intended as operatic material. Finally, in 1738, 
"Comus" was reworked by the Rev. John Dalton and with music 
by Dr. Arne was successfully staged.^ Dalton's adaptation was 
for a time frequently reprinted; it doubtless did serve to increase 
interest in Milton's poem and perhaps in all the minor poems, but 
evidently such interest existed already. 

Further general influence of the poem is slightly visible in such 

pieces as "A Poem on Chastity By Pastorus" printed in 

the Post-Angel (III, 152) for March, 1702, and in Ralph's "Night" 
(1728; see p. 50), where the poet remarks: 

Sometimes the guardian pow'rs of virtue's sons, 

Array'd in all the glories of the sky, 

Descend indulgent to their earthly charge, 

And drive the horrors of the night away; 

Tune to immortal songs their golden lyres, 

And sooth the woes of life with heav'n's eternal joys.' 

There is a somewhat similar passage — ^less close to the idea of 
"Comus" — in Thomson's "Summer," lines 525-30. 

It is interesting, and of course dangerous, to speculate how far 
the various uses of the proper names "Comus" and "Sabrina" in 
later poems may be due to the "Mask."* Both occur before Milton; 
but "Comus" occurred in rather inconspicuous places. Sabrina's 
story is told by Spenser, whose predecessors, in turn, seem to reach 

» Prom Hughes's Poems (1735). II, 55. 

2 On this matter see Gent. Mag., VIII, 151-52, or the Universal Spectator, No. 454 
(March 25, 1738). 

' An excellent parallel to 1. 86 comes to light as this goes to press. See Thomas 
Killigrew's "Claracilla" (1664), p. 5 (Act I, Scene 3). 

* See Todd's ed. of the Poetical Works, VI, 247-49, note. 

529 



162 George Sherburn 

back as far as Geoffrey of Monmouth. But Rolli in retelling her 
tale avows the stimulus of Milton; and quite possibly John Philips, 
an ardent disciple, may have been influenced by "Comus" to devote 
two lines to the "nais" in his "Cerealia" (1708). Moses Browne's 
seventh "Piscatory Eclogue" (1727, 1739) also is certainly to be 
mentioned; for in it Comus, a decent sort of rustic, sings in a song 
contest the story of Sabrina — much in the manner of Spenser's 
pastorals, but with Miltonic echoes, as when he ends : 
Sabrina, cease thy list'ning flood to bring, 
And Echo, cease, and let me cease to sing. 

Usually the mentions of Comus as a rustic or supernatural 
being are more definitely "in character," implying at least joviahty. 
Such mentions may be found in Spectator, No. 425; in an "Anacre- 
ontic" by Parnell; in Congreve's "Mourning Muse of Alexis"; 
and lastly in Mallet's "Cupid and Hymen" — which may date after 
1740. An interesting modification of the name is probably to be 
seen in a pastoral elegy signed "Comerus," which has faint echoes 
of "II Penseroso" and "Lycidas." In the elegy Comerus is a 
typical shepherd, not the jovial or supernatural personage of 
Milton.i 

The phrasal echoes of "Comus" are numerous, though not 
more plentiful than those of the two poems already considered. 
These echoes distribute themselves over the whole poem evenly — 
with perhaps some emphasis on the lyric portions. 

There are notable parallels to the opening speech of the Attend- 
ant Spirit. From line 6 Pope took " low-thoughted care" for 
"Eloisa to Abelard," line 298; and Thomson in "Autumn," line 
967, has "low-thoughted vice" in a passage otherwise colored by 
the minor poems. Pope, who curiously enough borrowed more 
from "Comus" than from any of the other minor poems, "lifted" 
line 14 for use in his "Epilogue to the Satires" (Satire II, 1. 235): 
And opes the temple of eternity. 

Dr. Hoadly similarly borrowed entire from line 47 one of his verses 

placed under the third print in Hogarth's "Rake's Progress" (1735): 

Sweet Poison of misused WINE. 

1 The poem was printed in Mist's Weekly- Journal for Sept. 10, ,1720 (No. 93; p. 554), 
and reprinted in the 1722 Collection of Letters from Mist's Weekly- Journal, I, 309-10. 

530 



Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems 163 

Line 53 was probably in Pope's mind when in his "Satires of Dr. 
Donne Versified" (Satire IV, 11. 166-67) he wrote: 

Not more amazement seized on Circe's guests, 

To see themselves fall endlong into beasts. 
The same poet, so Elwin pointed out,^ probably changed his first 
writing of "Windsor Forest," line 385, because it too closely resem- 
bled the bold lines of "Comus," 94-96. The tone of Milton's lines 
102-6 is much like that of the conventional "Anacreontic" of his 
century; but in at least one of Cowley's "Anacreontics" (1656), 
as Godwin^ points out, there is unusually close resemblance to 
Milton, lines 105-6. Cowley's lines are: 

Fill the bowl with rosie wine, 
Around our temples roses twine. 

It is further noticeable that Pope's dancers in "January and May," 
line 353, "beat the ground" as do those of "Comus," line 143. 
Perhaps the romantic thrill of Comus' "dazzling spells" is most 
truly caught by Moses Browne in his fifth eclogue, which ostensibly 
imitates "Lycidas": 

Mean time to the merk gloom trip fast along 

The wood-nymph bevy and swart fairy bands, 

And the elf-urchin throng, 

With each drear shape that lives in mildew bhght, 

And ev'ry blue fog of the spongy air, 

Oft do I view 'em from the hilly lands 

Ere the fled Cock rings his shrill matin clear, 

Or toiling hind loath leaves his dawn-woke dream . . . . ^ 

The scene between Comus and the Lady offers some parallels, 
which are, however, of but slight value. Thomson's "Winter," 
lines 297-99, may be compared with fines 205-9 of "Comus." 
There are doubtfully significant resemblances between Pope's 
"Winter" (1. 41) and fine 230; and between his Odyssey, Book XIII, 
fine 57, and line 262 of "Comus." More striking is Pope's 
indebtedness to lines 290-91 for lines 61-62 of his "Autumn": 
While lab'ring oxen, spent with toil and heat, 
In their loose traces from the field retreat. 

1 Pope's Works, I, 364, note, 
s Op. cit., pp. 287-88. 

3 Cf. with this passage "Comus," 11. 154, 436, and "L'Allegro." 1. 114. The meter 
may be referred to "Lycidas." 

531 



164 George Sherburn 

Echoes from the conversation between the brothers and from 
their scene with the supposed Thyrsis group themselves about two 
or three passages. The first of these deals with Contemplation 
(11. 377 ff.), and is to be related to the similar figure in "II Pense- 
roso," lines 51-54. Some uses of this figure by Milton's successors 
have been given; two or three more are worth giving in connection 
with the "Comus" passage: 

Delightful Mansion! Blest Retreat! 
Where all is silent, all is sweet! 
Here Contemplation prunes her Wings, 
The raptur'd Muse more tuneful Sings, 
While May leads on the Cheerful Hours,^ 
And opens a New World of Flowers 

IJohn Hughes, "A Thought in a Garden" {Poems, 
I, 171)]. 

Nature in ev'ry object points the road, 
Whence contemplation wmgs my soul to God 

[Mrs. Mary Chandler {ca. 1736?); quoted from T. 
Gibber's Lives of the Poets, V, 347]. 

Bear me, some God! oh quickly bear me hence 
To wholesome Sohtude, the nurse of sense: 
Where Contemplation prunes her ruffled wings 
And the free soul looks down to pity Kings! 

[Pope, "Satires of Dr. Doime," Satire IV, 11. 184 ff.]. 

Another popular line from this section of the poem is 429, which 
was used, slightly changed, by Pope in "Eloisa" (1. 20), and by 
Thomson in "Spring" (11. 909-10). Lines 494-95 also caught the 
attention of readers: witness Pope's "Summer," lines ^-6; his 
"Winter," hnes 57-58; and Moses Browne's eclogue "The Sea 
Swains": 

He, wond'rous artist, with his magic lay, 
Could the steam's rapid tide encaptiv'd stay. 

A striking parallel to Hne 549 is seen in Thomson's "Summer," 
lines 947-50: 

At Evening, to the setting Sun he turns 
A mournful Eye, and down his dying heart 
Sinks helpless; while the wonted Roar is up, 
And Hiss continual thro' the tedious Night. 
> See also Milton's "Sonnet to the Nightingale," 1. 4. 

532 



Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems 165 

The lyrics surrounding the appearance of Sabrina were justly 
among the most popular parts of the poem. Ambrose Philips in 
his second "Pastoral" (11. 65-66) perhaps chose his adjectives from 
''Comus" (11. 859, 865): 

Unhappy Hour, when first, in youthful Bud, 
I left the fair Sabrina's silver Flood! 

His rival. Pope, echoed these lyrics in strange places. There is a 
"translucent wave" from "Comus," line 861, in his "Lines on his 
Grotto," and in his Odyssey, Book VII, line 10, may be found "cool, 
translucent springs" from the same source. In his Iliad, Book 
XVIII, line 64, a nereid appears wearing amber hair somewhat 
after Sabrina's mode (1. 863); and lastly in his "Lament of Glum- 
dalclitch" (1. 48) we have a significant reminiscence of "Comus," 
lines898-99, in theline: 

Or in the golden cowslip's velvet head. 

Moses Browne's seventh eclogue may be cited again for the resem- 
blance of the following couplet to "Comus," line 825: 

Of the smooth Severn I a Lay rehearse, 

And call the wave-rob'd Goddess to my Verse. 

The beautiful epilogue of the Spirit in "Comus," with its descrip- 
tion of 

.... those happy climes that lie 
Where day never shuts his eye, 

is vaguely paralleled by a poetic passage from Mrs. Rowe's Letters 
moral and entertaining (1733), Letter X, in which the sylph Ariel 
describes the abode of sylphs. The resemblance is not minute; 
there is a similarity in the piling up of details. 

This concludes the total of some forty parallels to "Comus" 
drawn from about twenty different writers. 

D. "lycidas" 

Many of the ancient conventions of the pastoral elegy were so 
widely known in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that it 
is frequently difficult to tell whether a poet is harking back to 
"Lycidas" or to the Greek elegists or Virgil or Sannazaro. It has 

533 



166 George Sherburn 

been pointed out that Milton follows these earlier elegists very 
closely in passages.^ The name ''Lycidas," for instance, is used 
by Theocritus, Bion, Virgil, and Sannazaro, to name shepherds; 
hence similar uses by Gildon (Miscellaneous Letters [1694], p. 183), 
Mrs. Behn {The Land of Love [1717], p. 3), Broome ("Daphnis and 
Lycidas, A Pastoral"), Pope (''Winter"), Mrs. Rowe (Letter XX 
of her Letters moral and entertaining), and Aaron Hill ("Cleon to 
Lycidas") may mean nothing concerning the popularity of Milton. 
It seems clear, however, that Nicholas Rowe's "Stanzas to Lady 
Warwick on Mr. Addison's going to Ireland" apply the name to 
Addison with Miltonic implications; for Addison was a literary 
personage about to risk his life on the Irish seas, which had proved 
fatal to Milton's Lycidas. Some of the other works listed as 
using the name have additional echoes of Milton, but even this 
establishes only a probability of influence so far as the proper name 
is concerned. 

Among the poems generally reminiscent of "Lycidas" are 
Fenton's "Florelio; a Pastoral lamenting the death of the late 
Marquis of Blandford" (co. 1710), the anonymous poem signed 
"Comerus" in Mist's Weekly- Journal for September 10, 1720, and 
Moses Browne's fifth eclogue, "Renock's Despair. An Imitation 
of Milton's Lycidas" (1727, 1739). This last is by far the most 
important. Browne is evidently more concerned to copy the irreg- 
ular rhyme recurrence and the varying meter than to echo Milton's 
details or phrases. His preface of 1739 is interesting because it 
is highly eulogistic of "Lycidas" and because he thinks himself 
its earliest imitator. His poem is the first avowed imitation that 
I have noticed; but the Gentleman^ s Magazine for May, 1740 (X, 
253), says the poem "is reckon'd the best Imitation of Milton's 
Lycidas that has yet appear'd"; implying, certainly, that it was not 
the only imitation. Probably Browne made his claim to priority 
in 1727 — I have not seen the first edition of his preface. The poem 
contains practically no phrasal reminiscences of its avowed model. 

In fact, there are rather surprisingly few sure phrasal imitations 
of the poem, considering the high praise we have seen it receiving. 

'See Professor Hanford's study "The Pastoral Elegy and Milton's Lycidas" in 
P.M.L.A., XXV (1910), 403-47. 

534 



Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems 167 

The opening lines are recalled by a passage from the midst of Mrs. 
Rowe's poem "On the death of the Hon. Henry Thyne, Esq.": 

Ye tender myrtles mourn, nor let your boughs 

Hereafter deck one joyful lover's brows. 

Ye folding bays, and laurel's sacred shade, 

At once let all your wreathing glories fade. 

Hill's "Cleon to Lycidas" contains a passage that recalls line 10 

and also the ecclesiastical satire of the poem : 

Bid throb, the muse's pulse — for THY sweet call, 
What muse, uncharm'd, can hear ? . . . . 



Bid the priest Poet consecrate the rage 
Of a wTong'd nation's curses.^ 



Others have seen a parallel between line 12 and Pope's Odyssey, 
Book XIV, line 155; the resemblance lies in the thing described and 
the word ''welter," which is common to both. Pope is more clearly 
echoing Milton (1. 34) in his "Summer," line 50: 

Rough satyrs dance, and Pan applauds the song. 

Lines 50, 51, and 124 were obviously in Broome's mind when he 
wrote, in his poem "On the Death of my dear Friend Mr. Elijah 
Fenton" (1730): 

Where were ye, Muses, by what fountain side. 
What river sporting, when your favourite dy'd ? 



Unlike those bards, who, uninformed to play. 
Grate on their jarring pipes a flashy lay . . . ."^ 

Parnell seems in the following from "Piety" to be thinking of the 
noble passage where Milton (11. 64-76) condemns such poets as 
celebrate Amaryllis or Neaera's hair : 

Be thy Muse thy zeal, 

Dare to be good, and all my joys reveal. 

While other pencils flattering forms create 

And paint the gaudy plumes that deck the great; 

While other pens exalt the vain delight, 



» I am aware of Virgil's neget quia carmina Gallo f but the ecclesiastical reference 
added to the other seems to point to "Lycidas" rather than to Virgil's Eclogues, X, 3. 

2 The first of these couplets, of coiu-se, might have been inspired direct from 
Theocritus, but not the second. 

535 



168 George Sherburn 

Whose wasteful revel wakes the depth of night; 
Or others softly sing in idle lines 
How Damon courts, or Amaryllis shines; 
More wisely thou select a theme divine, 
Fame is their recompense, 'tis Heaven is thine. 

The general doctrine together with the attitude toward Fame seems 
Miltonic. The proverbial line on fame (1. 71) was possibly copied 
by Marvel in his "Fleckno, an English Priest at Rome" (lines 

27-28): 

Only this frail ambition did remain 
The last distemper of the sober brain. 

But of course the aphorism is much older than "Lycidas." The 
attendant advice "to scorn delights and live laborious days" (1. 72) 
found clearer echoes: Pope used the "laborious days" in his Iliad, 
Book IX, line 431; and Hamilton invoked "Contemplation" as 

follows: 

Teach me to scorn, by thee refin'd, 
The low dehghts of human kind: 
Sure thine to put flight the boy 
Of laughter, sport, and idle joy. 

Pope originally used another line from this general passage (1. 77) 
in the first form of line 131 of his "Essay on Criticism": 
Ere warned Phoebus touched his trembling ears. 

It is dangerous to try to point parallels to anything so conven- 
tional as the flower-list in "Lycidas"; but some passages seem 
worth risking. Pope in "Spring," line 31, makes his violets "glow" 
as did Milton (1. 145); Thomson ("Spring," 11. 448-49) makes 
"cowslips hang the dewy head" after "Lycidas," line 147, and 
possibly echoes line 151 in "Summer," lines 1522-23: 

Bring every sweetest Flower, and let me strow 
The Grave where Russel lies .... 

The flower-list (11. 107-20) in Ambrose Philips' third pastoral, which 
is an elegy, suggests Milton in some details, but not certainly the 
"Lycidas" passage. 

The somewhat unusual use of nectar^ in the immortalizing of 
Lycidas (1. 175) very likely is echoed in two lines from an anonymous 

' On similar uses see Todd's note on "Comus," 1. 838, Poetical Works of Milton 
(1809), VI, 372. 

536 



Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems 169 

"Ode to my Lord D. of B . An. Dom. 1704," printed in the 

Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany (1710), page 294: 

And now they bathe in Nectar Streams, 

Nor need the Sun's officious Beams. 

Lycidas' "oozy locks" in the same line seem to have hit Moses 
Browne's fancy; for in his metamorphosis of Glaucus into a sea 

god, he writes: 

His scaly limbs outspread a larger space, 
And oozy locks his azure shoulders grace. 

A last parallel may be noted between the first form of line 46 
of Pope's "Messiah" and line 181 of "Lycidas." Pope wrote, 

He wipes the tears for ever from our eyes, 
which is certainly closer to "Lycidas" than to the original passage 
in Isaiah. This completes the list of not very satisfying parallels 
to "Lycidas." At most there are about two dozen of them from 
fifteen different writers. 

E. OTHER MINOR POEMS 

To emphasize the fact that practically all of Milton's poems had 
been levied upon by imitative poets before 1740, it is important 
to cite the parallels noted to his shorter pieces. 

The "Vacation Exercise" (11. 91 ff.) stimulated Pope and Moses 
Browne to imitation. Pope in his "Summer," line 2, and in "Wind- 
sor Forest," line 340, uses "Thame" for "Thames" (cf. Milton, 
1. 100); and in "Windsor Forest," lines 346-47, he borrows other 
riparian details: 

The gulphy Lee his sedgy tresses rears; 
And sullen Mole, that hides his diving flood. 

Browne in his eclogue "The Strife" has a river-list of record length 
in which all Milton's rivers are embodied. In footnotes he refers 
to the "Vacation Exercise" and to "Lycidas," line 55. His 
descriptions of or notes on the Thames, the Mole, the Avon, the 
Trent, the Lea and the Dee are all in some way conscious of 
Milton's rivers. 

It is less surprising to find the "Nativity Ode" echoed. Lines 
21 and 114 possibly find imitation in line 894 of Samuel Wesley's 
"Epistle .... concerning poetry" (1700): 

Tho Virtue's gUttering Squadrons drive the Field. 
537 



170 George Sherburn 

From line 46 Hamilton probably derived "meek-ey'd" Charity 
for his poem "Contemplation," just as Pope made the nuns in 
"Eloisa," line 21, "pale-ey'd" in remembrance of Milton's "pale- 
ey'd priest" (1. 180). Grosart has pointed out that the tail of 
Milton's "Old Dragon" (1. 172) inspired lines 151-52 of Marvell's 
"First Anniversary of the Government under his Highness the 
Lord Protector": 

And Starrs still fall, and still the di-agon's tail 

Swinges the volumes of its horrid flail. 

Lines 173-78 are perhaps facetiously alluded to when the Weekly- 
Journal: or Saturday's Post (Mist) for August 9, 1718 (p. 519) 
remarks on the fact that "the Athenian Oracle is ceased and his 
Godship Apollo is become dumb."^ 

Todd has cited two interestingly early parallels in his notes to 
lines 229 ff . The first one reads : 

All the purple pride that laces 
The crimson curtains of thy bed 

[Crashaw, Sacred Poems, ed. Paris, 1652, p. 17]. 

The second, Todd introduces by saying that Thomas Forde in his 
Fragmenta Poetica (1660) 

has given us several poems on Christmas Day, in one or two of which he 
adopts some sentiments and expressions in this sublime and wonderful 
Ode; betraying, however, a want of genuine taste and fancy in affected 
emendation or ridiculous expansion. For example, in p. 7, 

What made the sun post hence away 

So fast, and make so short a day ? 

Seeing a brighter sun appear. 

He ran and hid himself for fear: 

Asham'd to see himself out-shined, 

(Leaving us and night behind,) 

He sneaked away to take a nap. 

And hide himself in Thetis lap. 

Pope's "Dunciad," Book II, lines 341-42, is obviously indebted 

to "Arcades," lines 30-31: 

As under seas Alpheus' secret sluice 
Bears Pisa's off'rings to his Arethuse. 

A few parallels to the sonnets are notable. Steele in his Poetical 
Miscellanies (1714, 1727) printed some anonymous verses "To 

I The "Athenian Oracle," of course, here means the coHection of questions and 
answers reprinted under the title at least as early as 1704 from the Athenian Mercury 
(1691-96). 

538 



Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems 171 

Aristus, in imitation of a sonnet of Milton." The "bloomy spray" 

of the nightingale sonnet figures with song birds in line 23 of Pope's 

"Spring" and in Ambrose Philips' lines "To Miss Charlotte Pulte- 

ney. (May 1, 1724)." Dyer's "Country Walk" (1. 135) has a 

"bloomy mead." Pope's "Imitation of Martial" glances at the 

phrasing of Milton's sonnet "On his being arrived to the age of 

twenty-three" in the following lines: 

.... While time with still career 
Wafts on his gentle wing his eightieth year. 

A parallel pointed out between the same sonnet and the "Dunciad," 
Book IV, line 6, seems insignificant. 

This ends our citation of parallels as evidence of interest in 
Milton's early poems. Any mathematical summary of such things 
is dangerous, because one may easily multiply parallels by counting 
a single passage twice or three times. Without doing this, and 
without including Robert Baron's work — in which the parallels 
are too frequent for counting — ^it may be said that roughly we have 
here cited something like one hundred and sixty-five parallels from 
about fifty different authors, though some anonymous poems may 
be by the same author and thus cut down our totals. These 
parallels are drawn from over a hundred different works. 

IV 

From the evidence here presented with regard to editions, men- 
tions of the poems in various places, and parallels found in later 
poems or prose, it may be concluded that the "neglect" of the 
minor poems before 1740 has been somewhat exaggerated. Cer- 
tainly the Warton brothers overstated the case. I have cited almost 
a hundred writers who showed consciousness of these poems in the 
first century of their existence; from these ninety-odd persons 
almost two hundred works have been cited, and in these only three 
passages have taken a slighting attitude toward the poems — those 
by Saumaise, Dryden, and William Benson. Considering the size 
of the reading public and the state of letters in general, these two 
hundred poems, biographies, letters, essays, etc., seem a not incon- 
siderable amount. Nor is the quality of the attention given the 
poems less impressive than the quantity. It is probable that after 
the Restoration Milton's literary credit temporarily declined — as 

539 



172 George Sherburn 

his political credit certainly did; but after the period when Toland's 
Life was written, the reputation of the minor poems is undoubted. 

Of the great vogue the poems came to enjoy in the middle of 
the eighteenth century, something has already been said. The 
writer may perhaps add two very strong personal impressions that 
have arisen in his mind from reading much of the poetry inspired 
by Milton's early pieces. The first is that the vogue of the poems 
after 1730 was greatly quickened by the fact that Thomson's "Sea- 
sons" had made very frequent and successful levies upon them; 
consequently the mid-century vogue may be in part a tribute to 
Thomson rather than to Milton. In the second place, it seems 
doubtful whether this increased interest in the poems was a blessing 
to English poetry. The more poetry of the time one reads, the 
more doubtful one becomes. The sentimental twilight poems, the 
feebly grotesque night-pieces that follow in Milton's train are as 
a rule not highly creditable to their authors. Some of Gray's 
worst phrases come directly from these poems and their kind. On 
the other hand, it is of course true that he, and some few others — 
very few — got genuine inspiration from Milton's minor poems. 
The idea that poetry was debased by this copying of Milton is not 
original with the present writer. The following satire on the sort 
of Miltonism fostered by Dodsley and his Collection of Poems will 
show the opinion of one observer in 1763. The verses^ are entitled 
"To a Gentleman, who desired proper materials for a monody": 

Flowrets — wreaths — thy banks along — 
Silent eve — th' accustom'd song — 
Silver-slipper'd — whilom — lore — 
Druid — Paynim — mountain hoar — 
Dulcet — eremite — what time — 
("Excuse me — here I want a rhime.") 
Black-brow'd night — Hark! scretch-owls sing! 
Ebon car — and raven wing — 
Charnel houses — lonely dells — 
GUmmering tapers — dismal cells — 
Hallow'd haunts — and horrid piles — 
Roseate hues — and ghastly smiles — 
Solemn fanes — and cyjiress bowers — 
Thunder-storms — and tumbling towers — ■ 
Let these be well together blended — 
Dodsley's your man — the poem's ended. 

UNrvERSiTY OF CHICAGO George Sherburn" 

1 They are quoted from the Pawkes-Woty Poetical Calendar (1763), V, IH. 

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